Protecting women at workplaces

Sexual harassment cases usually have a marked power imbalance between the victim and the accused; this may well affect the negotiation scenario, with the victim being unable to hold her own.

In recent times, the issue of sexual harassment of women at the workplace has assumed prominence with serious allegations being made against a former Supreme Court judge, whose court pronounced verdict on huge scams, and the editor of a magazine with truth and exposure as its masthead. In the case of the former, a court-appointed committee found that the complainant’s statement prima facie disclosed an act of unwelcome behaviour of sexual nature, but matters went no further as the judge was found to have demitted office prior to the commission of the alleged offence. The second case has followed the traditional process of criminal law, beginning with investigation and arrest.

A Central Act brought into force on December 9, 2013, provides an alternative method of handling complaints of sexual harassment made by working women. The purpose of this article is to highlight some key problems with this well-meaning but inadequately-formulated piece of legislation.

The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, was a response to the public outrage over what has come to be known as the Nirbhaya case. The redress forum under the Act is an Internal Complaints Committee appointed by the employer to be comprised of a woman senior employee, two other employees, and a social worker; it is mandated that at least half the committee must be constituted of women. Where such a committee is not set up by the employer, or where the complaint is against the employer himself, a provision is made for the setting up, by the District Magistrate, of a panel drawn from social workers and NGOs.

Based upon the complaint of the victim, the Committee is to conduct an inquiry and submit its recommendations to the employer (or District Magistrate), who is required to take action on the same. Where an offence is made out, the punishment for misconduct is as per the service rules of the employer; where no such rules exist, then as per the Rules under the Act. Under the Act, redress ranges from apology and censure to withholding promotion and increments, and stretches to termination. The Act, however, is silent on the situation where the employer’s service rules contain less stringent provisions.

Conciliation process

Section 10 provides the possibility for conciliation between the parties to be undertaken by the Committee prior to inquiry; this can be done only at the request of the victim. Conciliation is the process where a neutral engages with the parties to try and arrive at a settlement of their differences and disputes. The process has been in vogue in our industrial dispute enactments and in matrimonial litigation proceedings.

Under the synonymous term of mediation, it is increasingly a feature of the country’s courts, many of which have set up their own mediation centres, offering the service free of charge in thousands of cases where lawyers trained in the process mediate a range of commercial, property, and divorce disputes. The advantages are several — it enables better communication and understanding, is conducted in a confidential setting, and seeks a solution acceptable to both sides. At first sight, therefore, it seems quite reasonable to contemplate conciliation being used in sexual harassment cases.

However, this is an area where we have to tread warily, and certainly not rush in. Sexual harassmentcases usually have a marked power imbalance between the victim and the accused; this is implicit in the nature of the offence. This may well affect the negotiation scenario, with the victim being unable to hold her own, and end with a result advantageous to the other side.

Some acts labelled as harassment are grave violations of a woman’s body and dignity; these ought not to be the subject matter of a compromise. There is need to draw clear markers between negotiation and punitive action and to realise that some offences have the starkness of black and white, without intervening shades of grey. In these cases, there is also the need for co-workers to know the identity and culpability of the transgressor so as to safeguard themselves; such information will remain cloaked in the confidentiality of conciliation agreements. In a wider context, public naming can be a societal need.

All this is not to take away the choice of the victim, who is the central figure of our concern, but to emphasise that there are factors balancing the attractiveness of a quick settlement. The Act gets some basics wrong.

Firstly, it is a central tenet of the conciliation process that the neutral, being privy to confidential information usually obtained in private discussions with each party, cannot, if the conciliation fails, become the adjudicator to determine wrongdoing. The enactment gives both roles to the Committee.

Secondly, good conciliators come from training and experience, and must possess the sensitivity to deal with emotionally distraught parties, apart from deftly maintaining negotiating balance. It is not likely that the panel members taken from the organisation’s employees will possess such skills, besides the fact that they may well think twice before indicting a superior.

Third, compensation is a key punitive and deterrent measure, as cases abroad show. This Act enables the Committee to recommend compensation and preserves the right of the court to do so as well but forbids the award of monetary compensation in conciliation proceedings. The logic is unfathomable, unless the lawmakers thought that there would be a flood of women blackmailing hapless men with deep pockets.

Fourth, there is little justification for the Act to mandate secrecy when the Committee reaches a determination of guilt and recommends punishment.

The person who has poisoned the workplace may well do so again if not identified.

A mindset of empathy

Given that many victims will shy away from the publicity, the procedures, the delay and the harshness in the criminal justice system, the alternative structure and process is welcome, but needs much alteration.

Helping victims to make informed choices about the different resolution avenues, providing trained conciliators, a monetary compensation settlement option, an inquisitorial approach by the Committee when indicated, naming and shaming in grave cases, and in-camera trials are some areas of improvement. We need something else which legislation cannot provide — the mindset to understand the fears, compulsions, and pressures on women victims.

The legal concept and test of the “reasonable man” should give right of gender way to that of the “reasonable woman”.

The Net Spreads Wide

What consequences of the rapidly growing number of internet users in India?

For many years now, the spectacular growth of India’s information technology and business process outsourcing sectors has been driven almost entirely by foreign markets and customers across many time zones. They were, despite their double-digit growth claims, often criticised for being islands of the networked North in the digital darkness of the subcontinent. At the turn of the century, India had less than 10 million people connected to the world wide web; over the first decade of the 21st century it grew ten times to reach a hundred million. In less than three years since, the number of internet users in India has doubled and before this year is out, India will have the highest number in the world, after China.

It may well be that we are at the same point with regard to the internet, as we were with the mobile phone a decade back. In 2003 India’s mobile user base had just crossed the 10 million mark and the most optimistic projections suggested that there would be a 100 million mobile phone users by 2010. The actual number by that year was close to 800 million. For long the spectre of a debilitating digital divide had been the bane with India’s internet use limited to those with the incomes and skills to access computers costing tens of thousands of rupees. The government had often spoken about rolling out internet services and connecting villages and urban areas with high speed broadband. The ambitious plan of linking 2,50,000 of India’s villages with an optic fibre cable network remains largely unaccomplished. The broadband policy remains in tatters with broadband still defined at 512 kilobits per second (kbps) despite a decision taken last year to base it at four times that. Even in the largest of metropolitan centres in India, actual speed that users get is often abysmally low.

Interestingly, it appears that India’s internet expansion has piggybacked on the mobile phone and leapfrogged the wired internet. Behind this mixed metaphor lies a reality which shows that India’s citizens are reaching out to the world wide web with little help either from their government or from the internet service providers, who are not investing sufficiently to sustain this spread. Of the 204 million internet users recorded in October 2013, 110 million access the internet through their mobile phones. The availability of relatively inexpensive handsets with the ability to connect to the internet combined with the almost complete wireless phone coverage of the country is pushing internet use. What is most striking is that 68 million internet users are from rural areas, which have recorded a growth rate of over 50% in the last one year. Of these 25 million access the internet through mobile phones.

Other than mobile phones, the “cyber cafe” has been another important source of access to many people, perhaps playing the same role that the ubiquitous “PCO/STD/ISD” booths did in spreading telecommunications in the 1990s. The figures of internet usage, given out by the Internet and Mobile Association of India, indicate that it was only after the mobile use stabilised in 2010-11 did the shift to the internet start. Even now, internet use is defined in the most minimal terms and does not really imply an ability to access freely the information and communication capabilities of the medium. However, it does seem that the practical and cultural barrier to accessing the internet has been breached, maybe even the financial one. Perhaps, new government policies need to ride piggyback on the path cleared by the citizen-consumers themselves and use the existing mobile network to push internet use.

The shift from low teledensity to almost universal coverage was so swift that most observers and policymakers were left stranded with the conceptions and rhetoric of a bygone era. Something similar may well be happening with the internet. Given the rates at which the internet using population has grown and is projected to grow, it is now perhaps futile to talk of a digital divide in the terms we did even a couple of years back. That however does not mean that new divides, inequalities and barriers to access will not emerge. But to be able to identify them and work out strategies to address them will need us to be alive to the rapid pace of change, to the fact that the spread of the internet, combined with the mobile phone, is an extremely disruptive and transformational technology. Unfortunately, it appears that we are unable to recognise this revolution for what it is and thus remain unprepared to deal with either its dangers or its possibilities.

Drone Fever

India should avoid emulating the illegal use of unmanned aerial vehicles by the US.

On 1 November, Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of Pakistan’s Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) suffered the same fate as his predecessor Baitullah Mehsud, when he was killed by a combat version of the unmanned aerial vehicles – drones – that has been frequently used by the United States’ (US) military forces to assassinate individuals it finds hostile.

Mehsud was the leader of a group that has carried out a number of terrorist (including suicide) attacks that have killed many in Pakistan. It has also targeted members of the minority communities in the country. The TTP is reviled in Pakistan for its extremism, yet this revulsion does not mean that the people of Pakistan have welcomed the deaths in the drone attacks. Over the past few years, the drones have targeted insurgents belonging to the TTP, the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network. But they have also taken the lives of civilians in the target area; even mourners and funeral attendees have been targeted. Other than periodic statements condemning these attacks, the Pakistani security state establishment has generally winked and nodded at the use of the unmanned aerial vehicles for assassination by the US.

The Barack Obama presidency in the US – in line with its predecessor that began these attacks – has been unapologetic about its use of drones for targeted killings. In fact, under Obama’s presidency the use of drones has grown exponentially and become the chief tool for offensive military operations in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border areas. There have been many independent studies that have sought to establish the indiscriminate nature of the drone attacks. While these studies have not managed to arrive at an accurate figure of the number of innocents who have been killed, the broad conclusion is that a very large number of civilian deaths have taken place. The American Civil Liberties Union estimates that the deaths range from hundreds in Pakistan to thousands across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

Far from deterring insurgency, the attacks have only radicalised a number of people who have either lost their kin or have been angered by the killing of innocents as has been the case with aerial bombardment carried out by the US and its allied forces in Afghanistan. Recruits to the Al Qaida and other radical extremist organisations have also spoken of the drone and aerial attacks as motivating them to sign up with the extremists.

Drone attacks cannot be justified even if the targeted victim is unambiguously identified as hostile to the US and the missile is exactly on target, killing none else. Such use of drones constitutes a clear violation of international law. They are being used in countries which are not involved in armed conflict or engaged in a war with the US. They are the 21st century version of the Central Intelligence Agency hitmen who have so often assassinated individuals they disliked. The lack of legal oversight on US drones means that there is no check whether war crimes are being committed, particularly when there is enough circumstantial evidence that the US may well be stretching both the definition of terrorists as well as of potential targets. Forget international law, the Obama presidency has even stalled any attempt by US civil society organisations to raise questions about the drone programme, leave alone respond to concerns expressed by United Nations’ (UN) agencies. The attacks have been called into question by, among others, the UN Human Rights Council and UN special rapporteurs. But nothing has deterred the US from continuing to use drones for targeted assassinations.

India has also used these unmanned aerial vehicles in the recent past. They were commissioned by the military following the Kargil attacks of 1999. So far, the unarmed variants have been deployed for reconnaissance and monitoring along the India-Pakistan border and also in zones of conflict with Maoists. The Indian state is also said to have procured “killer drones” from Israel even as attempts to create indigenous and sophisticated versions of unmanned combat aerial devices are underway. Increasingly there is talk of using such drones for attacks in Maoist-controlled areas. Such a decision would be disastrous, escalating an already unsustainable conflict that has resulted in hundreds of deaths since an expansive campaign against the Maoists began earlier this decade.

The adoption of drones by powerful states is an acknowledgement by them that their extensive armouries of nuclear weapons and massive hardware are incapable of winning wars. Further, they are adopting a military technology which subverts half a century and more of international efforts to put legal fetters on weapons which take the conflict to civilians – like landmines and chemical weapons. It is a technology which encourages lawlessness, not just by “non-state actors” but more so by powerful states, particularly so as technology reduces the size of these machines while increasing their firepower.

Drone attacks against domestic targets are sought to be justified as being just another form of a military attack, the only difference being, it is said, that drones are more sophisticated instruments of war and allow the operator to be physically withdrawn from the zone of attack. This withdrawal of the combatant from the field, the sanitisation of the attacker from the violence he perpetuates is crucial to the inhumanity of drones. This is why the use of drones closes the door on any other form of resolution – including engagement in talks to end insurgency. Unfortunately, it is not possible in these days of rabid realism to expect the Indian state to take the lead in building an international consensus to put an embargo on the military use of unmanned aerial vehicles. At least, the Indian state and its military strategists must avoid the temptation of deploying drones against its own citizens.

Crime by Another Name

The casual acceptance of sexual harassment at the workplace must end.

The silence surrounding an everyday crime appears finally to be breaking. Beginning with the complaint by a law intern against a retired Supreme Court (SC) judge earlier this month and the most recent complaint by a woman journalist against her editor, many other women are now speaking up about sexual harassment at the workplace. Yet the few that have been reported represent but a sliver of the totality, one that millions of working women of all classes confront and negotiate almost on a daily basis.

Despite the SC passing the Vishaka guidelines in 1997, which laid down clear definitions of what constituted sexual harassment as well as the redressal system that had to be put in place within all institutions, this is a crime that remains largely unaddressed. That it is a crime requires no discussion. When women are compelled to tolerate sexual innuendoes, unwanted attention and physical contact, and even sexual assault in some instances, and all this in a place where they are hired for their professional skills, it is a form of sexual violence. It assaults not just their physical being but also their sense of self. Given unequal power equations, generally women cannot, and indeed do not, speak up when such harassment occurs. When they do, there is no redressal mechanism. As a result, it becomes their word against the perpetrator of the crime. The record shows that it is women who lose, either because there is no way to establish the crime as there are no witnesses or because the process of proving it becomes so traumatic that they are compelled to withdraw the complaint or leave the organisation.

The Vishaka guidelines were formulated precisely to deal with such crimes. They also formed the basis of the Sexual Harassment at the Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 passed in April this year. Under this law, it is mandatory for institutions employing women to set up an Internal Complaints Committee comprising representatives of the employer, the employees and someone from outside the institution. It is also mandated that half the members should be women.

Yet, despite the earlier guidelines and the law, we know now that even the SC does not have such an Internal Complaints Committee. In the recent case involving a retired SC judge and a legal intern, the apex court has set up a three-member committee consisting only of judges, without an outsider. How can the institution that ensures implementation of laws ignore provisions of the law it put in place through the Vishaka guidelines? Surely institutions like the judiciary should be setting an example rather than skirting around the provisions of the law.

Then take the media. It has been hyperactive in exposing the shortcomings of all the major institutions in this country including the armed forces. Yet, it is evident that media houses have failed to put in place the mechanisms of redressal for sexual harassment. In recent years, there have been several cases where women journalists have charged their superiors of such harassment. Yet, barring one, where the woman fought a 10-year-long legal battle and eventually won, none of the other cases have had a fair chance of redressal.

The most recent case involving Tehelka, a weekly magazine that has made a name for itself through its courageous exposés  and investigative journalism, is particularly shameful. For such a media house to deal with the accusation by one of their staff of sexual assault by the editor by accepting the latter’s offer to “recuse” himself from his editorial responsibilities, makes a mockery of the law. The magazine does not as yet have an Internal Complaints Committee as required by the law. Instead of first holding an independent inquiry, the editor sent an email seeking “atonement” and the managing editor accepted this and an apology as adequate for an “untoward incident”. Surely, this sets a most unfortunate precedent apart from violating provisions in the law.

The details of the two most recent cases of sexual harassment that have come to light are not as important as what they reveal about the casual attitude of all institutions, including the courts, the legal profession and the media, towards a crime against women. Given the year-long discussion on violence against women, triggered by the 16 December 2012 gang rape and death of a 23-year-old woman in Delhi, it is all the more reprehensible that institutions that should set an example are themselves found wanting.

Now that the crime of sexual harassment cannot be pushed under the carpet anymore, it is imperative that the law is followed up by a survey that establishes whether institutions (including courts and media houses) that are required to set up internal inquiry committees have done so or not. There is also a need to continue educating women, and men, about what constitutes sexual harassment as defined in the law. Such awareness, alongside institutional mechanisms for redressal, will go some way in ensuring that women do not have to suffer in silence, even if it does not make sexual harassment disappear.

Science journal’s top 10 breakthroughs, 2013

“Ultimately, we concluded, cancer immunotherapy passes the test. It does so because this year, clinical trialshave cemented its potential in patients and swayed even the sceptics. The field of cancer immunotherapy hums with stories of lives extended — the woman with a grapefruit-size tumour in her lung from melanoma, alive and healthy 13 years later; the 6-year-old near death from leukaemia, now in third grade and in remission; the man with metastatic kidney cancer whose disease continued fading away even after treatment stopped,” notes a paper published recently in the journal that ranked the top 10 science breakthroughs of 2013.

The cancer research community experienced a sea change in 2013 as a strategy, decades in the making, finally cemented its potential. Promising results emerged from clinical trials of cancer immunotherapy, in which treatments target the body's immune system rather than tumours directly. The new treatments push T cells and other immune cells to combat cancer — and the editors of believe that such approaches are now displaying enough promise to top their list of the year's most important scientific breakthroughs. Though the ultimate impact on the disease is not known, results so far have been highlighting its success.

This annual list of groundbreaking scientific achievements, selected by and its international nonprofit publisher, AAAS, also includes major breakthroughs in solar cell technologies, genome-editing techniques and vaccine design strategies, to name a few.

“This year there was no mistaking the immense promise of cancer immunotherapy,” Tim Appenzeller, chief news editor of the journal saidin a press release by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). “So far, this strategy of harnessing the immune system to attack tumours works only for some cancers and a few patients, so it's important not to overstate the immediate benefits. But many cancer specialists are convinced that they are seeing the birth of an important new paradigm for cancer treatment.”

Many of today's advances in cancer immunotherapy revolve around CTLA-4 (cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4) — a receptor on T cells that was discovered in 1987. “The early steps were taken by French cancer immunologist James Allison, now at the University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. CTLA-4 prevented the T cells from attacking invaders with their full force.

In 1996, James Allison showed that blocking CTLA-4 in mice could unleash T cells against tumour cells in the animals that finally “erased tumours in mice.”

In the meantime, Japanese researchers identified another “brake” on T cells known as PD-1. Clinical trialsinvolving this receptor began in 2006, and preliminary results in small groups of patients appear to be promising.

Another area of interest involves genetically modifying T cells to make them target tumours. In 2011, this strategy, which was known as chimeric antigen therapy, or CAR therapy, electrified the cancer research field, and it is now the subject of numerous clinical trials, particularly in blood cancers.

Accordingly, many pharmaceutical companies that wanted nothing to do with immunotherapy several years ago are now investing heavily, the release noted.

There is still plenty of uncertainty regarding how many patients will benefit from these therapies, most of which remain experimental — and for which forms of cancer they will work best, the release noted. Scientists are busy trying to identify biomarkers that might offer answers, and thinking of ways to make treatments more potent. But a new chapter in cancer research and treatment has begun. The journal’s list of nine other groundbreaking scientific achievements from the past year follows.

CRISPR: Akin to the discovery of the microscope in the 1920 that “touched off a revolution in surgical procedures,” the discovery of a bacterial protein — Cas9 — gives “researchers the equivalent of a molecular surgery kit for routinely disabling, activating, or changing genes,” the paper notes.

Though CRISPR, the gene-editing technique was discovered in bacteria, researchers use it as a scalpel for surgery on individual genes. Its popularity soared this year — with over 50 publications in 10 months — as more than a dozen teams of researchers used it to manipulate the genomes of various plant, animal and human cells.

Cloning human embryos: After years of failure, researchers were able to derive stem cells from cloned human embryos this year. Scientists were able to clone sheep, mice, pigs, dogs and other animals, but human cells proved really tricky.

But in 2007, researchers at the Oregon National Primate Research Center in Beaverton succeeded in cloning monkey embryos and extract embryonic stem cells. In the process they realised that caffeine plays an important role in the process, stabilizing key molecules in delicate human egg cells.

CLARITY: This imaging technique, which renders brain tissue transparent by “by removing the fatty, light-scattering lipid molecules that form cellular membranes.” The lipids are replaced with molecules of “clear gel” but all neurons (as well as other brain cells) are left intact and on full display. This has changed the way researchers look at this intricate organ in 2013.

According to the paper, researchers say the “advance could speed up by 100-fold tasks such as counting all the neurons in a given brain region and could make traditional methods of imaging post-mortem brain tissue irrelevant.” Currently, the technique is limited to small amounts of tissue.

Mini-organs: Researchers made remarkable progress growing mini human-like “organoids” in vitro this year. These included liver buds, mini-kidneys and tiny brains. miniaturized human organs may prove to be much better models of human disease than animals.

If it is a challenge to “coax stem cells to grow into specific tissues” prodding pluripotent stem cells to develop into organized structures has been nearly impossible. Not any more. Researchers in spectacular style were able to grow a variety of “organoids” in the lab — liver buds, mini-kidneys, and, most remarkably, rudimentary human brains.

Cosmic rays traced to supernova remnants: Although originally detected 100 years ago, scientists have not been sure where the high-energy particles from outer space known as cosmic rays come from. This year, they finally tied the rays to debris clouds left by supernovae, or exploding stars.

Perovskite solar cells: A new generation of solar-cell materials, cheaper and easier to produce than those in traditional silicon cells, garnered plenty of attention this past year. Perovskite cells are not as efficient as commercial solar cells yet, but they are improving very quickly.

Structural biology guides vaccine design: This year, researchers used the structure of an antibody to design an immunogen — the main ingredient of a vaccine — for a childhood virus that hospitalizes millions each year. It was the first time that structural biology led to such a powerful tool for fighting disease.

Our microbes, our health: Research on the trillions of bacterial cells that call the human body home made it clear how much these microbes do for us. "Personalized" medicine will need to take these microbial tenants into account in order to be effective.

Why we sleep: Studies with mice showed that the brain cleans itself — by expanding channels between neurons and allowing more cerebrospinal fluid to flow through — much more efficiently during sleep. The finding suggests that restoration and repair are among the primary purposes of catching Z's.

National Sample Survey Office released survey on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene

The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) released the survey of the key indicators of drinking water, sanitation, hygiene and housing condition in India on 24 December 2013.

The Survey conducted from July 2012 to December 2012 by National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

The objective of the NSS survey was to collect information on the different aspects of living conditions of Indian population necessary for decent and healthy living and to develop suitable indicators to assess the situation.

The improved sources of drinking water include bottled water, piped water into dwelling, piped water to yard, public tap, standpipe, tube well or bore well, protected well, protected spring and rain water collection.

Salient features of the NSSO Survey

Drinking water:
• Nearly 88.5 percent households in rural India and 95.3 percent households in urban India improved source of drinking water.

• In Kerala rural household are the worst hit with only 29.5 percent having access to safe drinking water whereas in Tamil Nadu it was 94 percent.

• Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan are above national average, people having access to safe drinking water.

• Bihar with 97.6 percent of rural households and 99.7 percent of urban households improved source of drinking water and in Uttar Pradesh with 96.6 percent and 99.2 percent respectively.

• The availability of drinking water from the principal source was considered sufficient throughout the year if in each of the calendar months the availability of drinking water was sufficient.

• 85.8 percent of rural households and 89.6 percent of urban households in India had sufficient drinking water.

• 16 percent of Nagaland rural households have sufficient drinking water throughout year.

Sanitation & Housing Condition:

• Nearly 62.3 percent of rural household and 16.7 percent of urban households did not have any bathroom facility.

• 59.4 percent and 8.8 percent households in rural India and urban India respectively had no latrine facilities.

• The households having latrine facilities, 31.9 percent and 63.9 percent households in rural India and urban India respectively had access to its exclusive use.

• About 38.8 percent and 89.6 percent households in rural and urban India respectively had access to improved type of latrine.

• 80.0 percent of rural households and 97.9 percent of urban households had electricity for domestic use.

• 94.2 percent households in rural India and 71.3 percent in urban India had secured tenure in their dwelling.

• 65.8 percent of rural households and 93.6 percent of urban households lived in a house with pucca structure whereas 24.6 percent of rural households and 5.0 percent of urban households lived in a house with semi-pucca structure during 2012.

• Only 26.3 percent and 47.1 percent households in rural India and urban India respectively had dwelling units with good ventilation.

• 31.7 percent of rural households and 82.5 percent of urban households had improved drainage facility in the environment of their dwelling units

• 32 percent of rural households and 75.8 percent in urban household’s areas had some garbage disposal arrangement.

• Only 10.8 percent of urban dwelling units were situated in slum.

• The households living in slums/squatter settlements, percentage of households who tried to move out of slums/squatter settlements were 8.5 percent, 4.9 percent and 6.9 percent in case of notified slums, non-notified slums and squatter settlements respectively.

• At all-India level 70.8 percent of households had cited better accommodation as the main reason for which they thought to move out of the slum/squatter settlement whereas 11.7 percent households had identified proximity to place of work as the main reason.

China's controversial policy on Brahmaputra

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CCEA approved the Continuation of National Scheme of Welfare of Fishermen in the 12th Plan

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on 26 December 2013 approved the central sector scheme National Scheme of Welfare of Fishermen during the 12th Plan. The Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture has formulated the scheme. 

The objectives of the scheme are:
a) Provision of basic amenities like drinking water and sanitation in fishers` villages
b) Better living standards for fishers and their families,
c) Social security for active fishers and their dependants, and
d) Economic Security

Following benefits have been targeted during the twelfth plan period for the fishermen across India:
i. Additional 4600 houses per year
ii. Coverage of 3.5 lakh fishers under Saving-cum-Relief every year
iii. An additional coverage of 3 lakh fishermen under Group Accident Insurance has been set
iv. Covering 6400 fishermen per year under Training and Extension

The outlay to implement the scheme is 640 crore rupees, which involves the central outlay of 320 crore for remaining part of the 12th Plan.

Components of the scheme are:
i. Group Accident Insurance for active fishermen
ii. Development of model fishermen village
iii. Saving-cum-Relief, and
iv. Training and Extension

The amount of assistance and compensation enhancement that has been approved by the cabinet are:

Item	11th Plan	12th Plan
Cost of construction of house	50000 rupees per house	75000 rupees per house
Cost of construction of Tube well	30000 rupees for all States and Union Territories 35000 rupees for North Eastern States	40000 rupees for all States and Union Territories 45000 rupees for North Eastern States
Cost of construction of Community Hall	175000 rupees per hall	200000 rupees per hall
Relief under Saving cum Relief component	1800 rupees (600 rupees per month for three months ban period)	2700 rupees (900 rupees per month for three months ban period)
Compensation under Group Accident Personal Insurance	50000 rupees in case of partial permanent disability and 100000 rupees in case of death/total disability	100000 rupees in case of partial permanent disability and 200000 rupees in case of death / total disability
Training and Extension	Stipend at 125 rupees per day subject to maximum of 1875 rupees per participants for maximum of 15 days of honorarium to authors of handbook 15000 rupees Honorarium for experts for preparation of manual: 5000 rupees Workshops/seminars: 50000 rupees Construction of training centre 30 lakh rupees	No Change
Grant in Aid to FISHCOPFED	50 Lakh rupees	No Change

‘Quotas for education helped SCs, but boys alone reaped the benefit’

Empirical impact of reservations is yet an un-studied phenomenon

The first evaluation of the impact of reservations on educational attainment has shown that quotas in educational institutions did indeed improve the education indicators of the Scheduled Castes (SCs), but nearly all of the improvement was among boys only. The SC girls experienced next to no improvement in their education levels as a result of reservations.

While there is broad political consensus on the value of affirmative action in educational institutions for children from scheduled castes, the empirical impact of reservations is yet an un-studied phenomenon. What makes it particularly difficult is that no data is available on the educational levels of people before and after reservations came into effect.

Guilhem Cassan, an economist and assistant professor at the University of Namur in Belgium, took advantage of a natural experiment which occurred in 1976, when the lists of SCs were harmonised across States for the first time since Independence, giving fresh SC status to 25 lakh more people. Mr. Cassan was thus able to compare the educational levels of those people who had had the SC status since Independence, and those who were of school-going age when they got the SC status in 1976.

For educational levels, Mr. Cassan turned to the 1998-99 National Family Health Survey-2, the only large-scale official Indian survey that includes both precise caste group names and data on educational outcomes.

Mr. Cassan found that access to the SC status led to an increase of 0.3 years of schooling which may sound small, but is large in statistical terms. “It has to be put in perspective with the average level of education in this population, which is of 4.2 years (for individuals born between 1950 and 1979). Hence, 0.3 years of education is a 7% increase in the number of years of education of this population,” Mr. Cassan told The Hindu.

To broaden the understanding of educational attainment from years of schooling alone to measures of skills, Mr. Cassan also looked at literacy levels and numeracy levels. While literacy is measured in a straightforward way, Mr. Cassan constructed an unusual measure of numeracy, by looking at a respondent’s tendency to round off his or her reported age, something that is associated with a discomfort with numbers.

Access to the SC status led to an improvement in both literacy and numeracy levels, Mr. Cassan found. However, the findings were extremely uneven across gender, to the extent that most of the improvements in SC educational attainment was among boys alone; reservations had next to no impact on educational outcomes for girls, Mr. Cassan found. For males alone, access to the SC status meant an increase of 0.7 years of schooling on average; a 12% increase for boys, and 0% for girls.

“Gender is clearly a dimension that is too often neglected in the reservation debate,” Mr. Cassan said. “However, this issue goes beyond the caste question, as girls in general are discriminated against,” he added.

The Scheduled Caste girls face the combined effect of patriarchy and poverty, Sukhadeo Thorat, chairman of the Indian Council for Social Science Research and an economist who has widely published on the impact of caste, told The Hindu. However the newer generation of scheduled castes have begun to increasingly send girls to school and even on to higher education, Dr. Thorat said. A sharp rural-urban gap in female enrolment in higher education remains, he added.

Double-Digit Inclusive Growth

Not without Robust Agricultural Growth

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Onion and fiscal tears

By Jojo Mathews

The parity in the prices of onion, beer and petrol (Rs 75), couple of weeks back became a source of charade on social media. Many of my friends, colleagues and students shared and “liked” this message and helped it to become viral on social media, thus they ostentatiously displayed their displeasure and anguish over the spiraling food inflation. Captivatingly, the reports related to skyrocketing onion prices (which even touched triple digit in some cities) hijacked the main stories and primetime of news channels for many days. The opposition parties serendipitously got a pertinent issue to leverage upon and target the government that too in the election year.

Onion prices have always been a politically sensitive issue in India. Interestingly, the onion prices had been instrumental in toppling two governments in the past. In 1980, the rise in onion prices helped Indira Gandhi to topple India’s first non-Congress government. She extensively used the issue of high onion prices in her election speeches to come back to power. Likewise in 1998 the BJP was discarded in assembly elections from Delhi and Rajasthan because of the highest ever onion price rise. In 2010 during the onion price rise the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself had to make a public statement in which he termed this as a “grave concern”. These clearly reflect the mystical correlation between the politics and onion prices.

The disturbing fact in the whole scenario is that even though the top leadership of the country is aware of the issue and its dire consequences; no concrete step is taken to address the basic anomalies. There was no consensus among the central ministers of the incumbent government about the causes for this price rise. The central agricultural minister attributed the price rise to lower-than-expected harvest due to an extended monsoon that damaged crops in the main producing region in Maharashtra. The Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma officially stated that hoarding by traders is a major reason for the sudden spike in prices.

In the lexicon of economics, the primary cause attributed to rise of onion pricing in India is supply side constraints. In simple words, the “supply side” is the umbrella term that incorporates all the factors and stakeholders that are involved in or influence the production, distribution, transportation and marketing of any commodity. History is testimony of the fact that the governmental responses to price rise in case of onion had been ad hock and marred with short sightedness. The incumbent governments generally respond the erratic price rise with textbook measures: they either curb exports or import onions to improve supplies. Such measures solve the problem for a short period but no long-term gains are made. To be very precise the governmental response only helps to augment the supply but does not addresses the supply side constraints.

A good monsoon or a drought can interrupt harvests. But what compounds weather-related problems is the corruption in India’s commission-based onion trade which is opaque and largely oligopolistic. Traders raise prices at the slightest hint of a drop in output. To understand this in detail it is quintessential to understand the details of Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act which regulates the agricultural distribution and marketing in India.

The APMC Acts were introduced in the 1960s by the state governments. These acts prohibited farmers from dealing directly with retailers. As per the provision of the act the farmers could sell their produce only through licensed middlemen or 'market functionaries'. The noble intention by creating regulated markets was that  the price paid to farmers by licensed middlemen for their produce could be monitored, thereby ensuring that they were not exploited. But over the years it grew into a monster, gaining layer upon layer of intermediaries, none of whom added any value to the fruits and vegetables they traded even as they added on their own margins.

 Farmers in present scenario sell their produce to licensed middlemen at the APMC mandis. These middlemen resell the same produce to wholesalers at the APMC market in urban areas. At these urban APMC markets, the produce passes on to retailers and then to the end-consumers at the urban retail markets. In the absence of market information farmers do not get remunerative prices and the middlemen get the major share in profit. Thus there is wide gap between the wholesale and retail prices with middlemen consuming the best of the pie. Going by the large differential between wholesale and retail prices — the latter is at least 50 per cent more than the former. Middlemen in APMC market are politically very well connected. These middlemen are in a position to make huge money at the cost of
consumers, in case of scarcity like in the present context. This clearly suggests that the lion’s share in the distribution of the agricultural commodities goes to the intermediaries and the players at the extreme end of the supply chain (i.e. producer and consumer) had to suffer on their behest. It’s time the government took steps to bring what is lacking in India’s onion trade — transparency.

The another issue that is significant to the issue of price rise of onion and other vegetables is the complete lack of efficient storage facilities, all that an increased supply response does is dramatically lower prices — till farmers are dumping onions on the highways as there are no takers. Due to inadequate storage facilities the buffer stock of the perishable commodities like fruits and vegetable as a cushion against the exigencies like erratic rainfall etc cannot be maintained.  The Foreign Investment in the wholesale trade was permitted way back in 1997 but no significant investment has taken place in areas like cold storage, ware house management and post harvest infrastructure. Thus governmental intervention and public funding are pivotal to change the present scenario.

The FDI permitted in retail sector can provide some solace in the present scenario. To streamline the value chain of the organized retail and to access the agriculture produce directly from the producers, it would be quintessential for the multinational companies to make investment in the post harvest infrastructure.

In this era of globalization the government and public policy should create a conducive environment to attract investment and promote healthy competition in the farm sector.  It’s the high time to get rid of intermediaries that grab the lion’s share without any value addition in the supply chain. Alternative supply chain models that adhere to disintermediation of licensed middlemen are essentially the need of the hour.