Introduction:-
It has been said that peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict – alternatives to passive or aggressive responses,
alternatives to violence.
1)Left Extremism:-
- Negotiations with the extremist outfits should be an important mode of conflict resolution.
- The system of periodic official inspections and review of organisational performances needs to be revitalised.Suitable security to the senior administrative and technical officers while on tour.
- Enhance the capacity of the security forces to act effectively and firmly, but in conformity with constitutional bounds.
- Sensitising the police and paramilitary personnel to the root causes of the disturbances that they are seeking to curb, are necessary.
- Formation of trained special task forces on the pattern of the Greyhounds in Andhra Pradesh
- Establishing and strengthening local level police stations, adequately staffed by local recruits
- For effective implementation of the Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act, 2006, multidisciplinary Oversight Committees may be constituted to ensure that the implementation of this ameliorative legislation does not adversely affect the local ecosystems.
- Development schemes and land reforms initiatives
- The nexus between illegal mining/forest contractors and transporters and extremists which provides the financial support for the extremist movement needs to be broken.To achieve this, special anti-extortion and anti-money laundering cell should be established by the State police/State Government.
- For implementing large infrastructure projects, BRO can be implementing agency.
2)Land Related Issues:-
- Provide renewed impetus to land reform measures like redistribution of surplus land, vesting title in tenants and carrying forward consolidation of land holdings
- Augmenting the banking system in the rural areas and making them more responsive to the farmers’ needs.
- Redesign poverty alleviation programmes to make them more relevant to the needs of small and marginal farmers
- Develop alternative livelihood by increasing public investment in non-farm and off-farm activities.
- Encourage formation of ‘Self Help Groups’ (SHGs) to improve access to credit and marketing and empower the disadvantaged.
- encourage formation of ‘Self Help Groups’ (SHGs) to improve access to credit and marketing and empower the disadvantaged.
3)Water Related Issues:-
- Since Article 262 of the Constitution provides that neither the Supreme Court nor any other Court shall exercise jurisdiction in respect of inter-State river disputes, it is necessary that the spirit behind this provision is fully appreciated.
- River Basin Organisations (RBOs) should be set up for each inter-State river.
- In order to develop, conserve, utilise and manage water on the basis of a framework that incorporates long term perspectives, a national water law should be enacted.
4)Issues Related to Scheduled Castes and Tribe:-
- Government should adopt a multi-pronged administrative strategy to ensure that the Constitutional, legal and administrative provisions made to end discrimination against the Scheduled Castes are implemented in letter and spirit.
- There is need to place a positive duty on public authorities for promotion of social and communal harmony and prevention of discrimination against the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
- There is need for engaging independent agencies to carry out field surveys to identify cases of social discrimination.
- Spread awareness about the laws and the measures to punish discrimination and atrocities.
- The District Administration should organise independent surveys to identify ‘vulnerable areas’.
- The administration and the police should be sensitised towards the special problems of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
- Focus on the rehabilitation of the victims and provide all required support to them including counselling.
5)Religious Conflicts :-
- Community policing should be encouraged
- District Peace Committees/Integration Councils should be made effective instruments of addressing issues likely to cause communal disharmony.The District Magistrate in consultation with the Superintendent of Police should constitute these committees.
- In conflict prone areas, the police should formulate programmes in which the members of the target population get an opportunity of interacting with the police as a confidence building mechanism.
- Enhanced punishments for communal offences
- Setting up of special courts for expeditious trial of cases related to communal violence.
- Giving powers of remand to Executive Magistrates in cases of communal offences.
- Prescription of norms of relief and rehabilitation
6)Judicial Delays and Alternative Dispute Redressal:-
- Allocation of resources for upgradation of infrastructure and personnel of the subordinate judiciary needs to receive higher priority in federal fiscal transfers
- Much greater attention needs to be paid to make the institution of Lok Adalats serve their intended objective, and in particular to enlist active cooperation of the members of the Bar to give this approach a chance of success.
- Ministry of Law may initiate a dialogue with the Bench and the Bar of the higher judiciary to explore ways and means of bringing ‘greater finality’ to the decisions of quasi-judicial authorities and bodies.
7)Civil Society and Conflict Resolution:-
- While social capital formation needs encouragement to improve delivery of services and build community self reliance, it is imperative that such initiatives also attempt to involve communities in ‘in-house’ conflict resolution.
- General policy guidelines need to be formulated by the State Governments for involving both the Panchayats and urban local bodies along with ‘non police’ instrumentalities of the State, in conflict resolution.
- Guidelines of Centrally sponsored and Central Sector Schemes may be suitably modified to require that beneficiary capacity building may also emphasise developing self-reliance in local conflict management.
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.