News Snippet
News 1: India’s jobless rate rose to 3-month high of 8% in November
News 2: Digi Yatra initiative
News 3: Centre to cut funds if land is not allotted for housing scheme
News 4: How will global layoffs impact India?
News 5: How the e-rupee will work?
News 6: Nepal elections – Possible outcomes, and implications for India
Other important news:
- India’s entire 2/3-wheeler fleet needs $285 bn to turn electric
- Baguette makes it to UNESCO intangible cultural heritage list
News 1: India’s jobless rate rose to 3-month high of 8% in November
Background
India’s unemployment rate rose to 8% in November, the highest in three months, from 7.77% in the previous month, data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) showed on Thursday.
The urban unemployment rate rose to 8.96% in November from 7.21% in the previous month, according to the data.
The rural unemployment rate slipped to 7.55% from 8.04%, it showed.
Unemployment rate
The unemployment rate is essentially the percentage of working-age people (15 years and above) who are demanding work but not able to get a job.
The underlying size of the labour force — that is, the percentage of working-age people demanding work — itself varies over time and is measured by the Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR).
Unemployment rate = [Total unemployed / Total Labour Force]
In other words, unemployment rates are expressed as a percentage of the labour force, not the total population.
News 2: Digi Yatra initiative
Background
Passengers traveling from Delhi, Varanasi and Bengaluru will be able to use their face as boarding pass from December 1 to enter these airports, to access the security check area and pass the boarding gate.
Travellers will have to mandatorily provide their Aadhaar details to avail themselves of this service.
Face recognition technology for boarding pass
The technology, however, is not available at airline check-in counters at the moment and is expected to be introduced at a later stage, said airport sources.
Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia launched the technological initiative called “Digi Yatra” at Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi on Thursday.
The facility is also expected to be operational at Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune and Vijayawada by March 2023, and then gradually across various airports in the country.
The service is voluntary in nature, and is currently available only for domestic flights.
What is DigiYatra and how will it work?
DigiYatra envisages that travellers pass through various checkpoints at the airport through paperless and contactless processing, using facial features to establish their identity, which would be linked to the boarding pass.
With this technology, the entry of passengers would be automatically processed based on the facial recognition system at all checkpoints – including entry into the airport, security check areas, aircraft boarding, etc.
DigiYatra process
Under the DigiYatra process, a passenger will first be required to download the Digi Yatra app on his or her phone, register with an OTP received on the Aadhaar-linked mobile number, upload Aadhaar details and a photo followed by uploading the boarding pass for the upcoming travel.
This will now allow the passenger to enter the airport building after scanning the QR code on the digital boarding pass followed by a facial scan. Next, the passenger can gain access to the security area too with a mere face scan.
The passenger will have to continue to use the traditional method for check-in and baggage drop, which involves a digital or a paper boarding pass along with other identity documents.
Speaking about privacy concerns, Mr. Scindia said that passenger’s identity details and personally identifiable information (PII) will be stored in a secure wallet in the passenger’s phone.
News 3: Centre to cut funds if land is not allotted for housing scheme
Background
The States unable to provide land to the landless beneficiaries of the Union government’s flagship housing scheme by December 15 will find their targets for this financial year redistributed to other States, the Centre warned recently.
This means that the Centre will withdraw its share of funds allocated to errant States under the Centrally sponsored Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awas Yojana (PMAY-G).
Land allocation and housing scheme
More than a fifth of such landless beneficiaries are in Tamil Nadu.
As per the statistics available with the Union Ministry of Rural Development, 2.06 crore houses had been constructed till November 2022.
With the scheme entering its final phase, the construction of houses for at least 2.5 lakh landless beneficiaries across the country is one of the last impediments. However, 43% of landless beneficiaries are yet to be provided with land.
Tamil Nadu, with 56,709 landless beneficiaries still on the wait list, followed by Maharashtra (48,272), Assam (23,064), Odisha (19,869) and Bihar (16,943).
Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awas Yojana (PMAY-G)
Launched: April 2016
Type: Centrally Sponsored Scheme
A goal of building 2.95 crore houses for the rural poor by March 2022, with the target figure derived from the Socio-Economic Caste Census, 2011.
Timeline: The scheme was launched in April 2016 Due to the COVID pandemic, the deadline was extended by two years till March 2024.
Need for housing
Housing is one of the basic requirements for human survival. For a normal citizen owning a house provides significant economic and social security and status in society.
For a shelter less person, a house brings about a profound social change in his existence, endowing him with an identity, thus integrating him with his immediate social milieu.
Objective
To provide pucca house to all who are houseless and living in dilapidated houses in rural areas. The overall target is to construct 2.95 crore pucca houses with basic amenities by March, 2024.
Funding
For plain areas, Central: State = 60:40
For Northeastern areas, Central: State = 90:10
News 4: How will global layoffs impact India?
Background
Over the past two months, a slew of U.S. multinational companies including tech giants Amazon, Meta, Intel, Twitter and financial behemoths like Citi and Morgan Stanley, announced massive layoffs.
According to a global placement and coaching firm, the layoffs crossed 60,000 in September and October. These developments are bound to have an impact, on India’s export prospects, especially in the information technology (IT) sector.
Why are layoffs becoming common?
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai had warned of a coming winter in the tech sector earlier this year. A potential economic recession is a big red flag.
With inflation soaring in most parts of the world, central banks have been scrambling since March this year to rein it in by increasing rates so as to make it more costly to borrow and consume. This will eventually affect economic growth and jobs.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has cited forecasts for global GDP growth in both 2022 and 2023 as gloomy, given the pandemic and ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. Setting aside the 2008 crisis numbers, estimates for this calendar and the next by the IMF are the weakest since 2001.
What is the outlook for the Indian IT industry?
The Indian IT services firms are among the largest employers in the organised sector and any global economic trend is bound to have an impact on their growth projections. Managements look at headcount numbers critically when they want to cut costs and protect profit margins as they are accountable to investors.
All top companies except Wipro saw a rise in revenue and net profit. Wipro’s net profit slid 9% from a year earlier for the quarter ended September.
The attrition rates, or the number of employees per 100 quitting on their own, of the top two firms, TCS and Infosys, show that these rates are still high, which means that there is enough business for the sector for competitors to draw away employees with promise of higher salaries.
What about start-ups?
News of layoffs in the Indian start-up front is predominantly in EDtech, or the educational technology front. A lesser share of internet users visiting educational websites since the decline of the pandemic is cited as one reason.
News 5: How the e-rupee will work?
Background
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 01st December, 2022 launched the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) — digital rupee or e-rupee (e₹) — for the common man.
What is CBDC or the digital rupee?
CBDC is a legal tender issued by the RBI in digital form. It is the same as the fiat currency, and is exchangeable one-to-one with the fiat currency.
Only its form is different — it is not paper (or polymer) like physical cash. It is a fungible legal tender, for which holders need not have a bank account.
CBDC will appear as ‘liability’ (currency in circulation) on the RBI’s balance sheet.
The e-rupee will be in the form of a digital token representing a claim on the central bank, and will effectively function as the digital equivalent of a banknote that can be transferred electronically from one holder to another.
A token CBDC is a “bearer-instrument” like a banknote, meaning whoever ‘holds’ the tokens at a given point in time will be presumed to own them.
How is RBI introducing the CBDC?
The pilot launched will initially cover four cities — Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar — and will be later extended to Ahmedabad, Gangtok, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Kochi, Lucknow, Patna, and Shimla.
The pilot will work in a closed user group (CUG) comprising participating customers and merchants, the RBI has said. Select customers from the selected cities will get CBDC wallets with notes printed digitally with the RBI Governor’s signature.
Eight banks will participate in the pilot — the State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank in the first phase in the first four cities, and subsequently, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank.
The scope of the pilot may be expanded gradually to cover more banks, users, and locations.
How can an individual use the e-rupee?
E-rupees will be issued in the same denominations as paper currency and coins, and will be distributed through the intermediaries, that is banks. Transactions will be through a digital wallet offered by the participating banks, and stored on mobile phones and devices.
Transactions can be both person to person (P2P) and person to merchant (P2M). For P2M transactions (such as shopping), there will be QR codes at the merchant location.
A user will be able to withdraw digital tokens from banks in the same way she can currently withdraw physical cash. She will be able to keep her digital tokens in the wallet, and spend them online or in person, or transfer them via an app.
How is this different from other wallets?
Not very different in terms of how it will be used. However, UPI-based apps like Google Pay and Paytm have a daily and per-transaction spending limit.
The RBI has not fixed any limit on holding digital rupees in wallets. Digital rupee transactions above Rs 2 lakh are likely to be reported for tax matters.
What are the types of e-rupee?
Based on usage and the functions performed by the digital rupee, and considering different levels of accessibility, the RBI has demarcated the digital rupee into retail and wholesale categories.
Retail e-rupee (launched on 1st December, 2022) is an electronic version of cash primarily meant for retail transactions, which can potentially be used by almost everyone, and can provide access to safe money for payment and settlements.
Wholesale CBDC is designed for restricted access to select financial institutions. It has the potential to transform the settlement systems for financial transactions undertaken by banks in the government securities (G-Sec) segment and inter-bank market, and make the capital market more efficient and secure in terms of operational costs, use of collateral, and liquidity management.
What was the need to introduce the e-rupee?
Leveraging blockchain technology for the e-rupee is a stepping stone for India becoming a $1 trillion digital economy.
India is witnessing massive growth in digital transactions — the volume and value of UPI transactions increased by 118 per cent and more that 98 per cent respectively in Q2 2022 compared to Q2 2021, said Srinivas Nidugondi, Chief Growth & Transformation Officer at the mobility solutions provider Comviva.
How is CBDC different from cryptocurrency?
Being backed by the RBI, e-rupee is not comparable to private virtual currencies like Bitcoin that have mushroomed over the last decade.
Private virtual currencies sit at substantial odds with the historical concept of money. They are not commodities or claims on commodities as they have no intrinsic value; claims that they are akin to gold seem opportunistic.
Usually, certainly for the most popular ones now, they do not represent any person’s debt or liabilities. There is no issuer. They are not money — certainly not currency — as the word has come to be understood historically.
Cryptos are not backed by the central bank; in fact, the RBI wants the government to ban cryptocurrencies in India.
The inherent design of cryptocurrencies is more geared to bypass the established and regulated intermediation and control arrangements that play the crucial role of ensuring integrity and stability of the monetary and financial ecosystem, says the RBI’s concept note on digital rupee.
What are the benefits of e-rupee?
- Reduced dependency on cash
- Higher seigniorage due to lower transaction costs
- Reduced settlement risk
- Large cash usage can be replaced by CBDCs
- The cost of printing, transporting, storing and distributing currency can be reduced
- Payments are final, and thus reduce settlement risk in the financial system
- The need for interbank settlement disappears
- Enables a more real-time and cost-effective globalization of payment systems
- Reduces operational costs associated with physical cash management
- Enhance settlement efficiency
- Spur innovation in cross-border payments
Will CBDC work in offline mode?
There is no indication yet from the RBI that the e-rupee will function in the offline mode. While offline functionality will allow CBDC transactions in regions with poor or no Internet connectivity and create digital footprints of the unbanked population in the financial system.
The RBI feels that a risk of ‘double-spending’ exists in offline mode — because it will be technically possible to use a CBDC unit more than once without updating the common ledger of CBDC.
However, the RBI has said this can be mitigated to a large extent by technical solutions and appropriate business rules including a monetary limit on offline transactions.
Is it vulnerable to cyber-attacks?
The RBI concept paper says CBDC ecosystems may be at similar risk for cyber-attacks as existing payment systems. Cybersecurity considerations will need to be taken care of, both for the item and the environment.
News 6: Nepal elections – Possible outcomes, and implications for India
Background
Votes are still being tallied in the Nepal parliamentary elections that were held on November 20, only the second since the country adopted its republican constitution in 2015.
From the count so far, the six-party pre-poll alliance led by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) of Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ is in the lead.
What Delhi hopes
From India’s perspective, the continuance of a Deuba-led government is the best scenario. The Nepali Congress has old ties to India, and under his prime ministership, India-Nepal ties recovered to a great extent from the low to which they had sunk under Prime Minister K P Oli’s watch.
After succeeding Oli in a game of thrones in 2021, Deuba made his first visit to India in April this year. The three day tour included Varansi, and the Kasi Vishwanath temple and helped to kick start a relationship that had been in the doldrums since the map controversy over Lipulekh in 2020, with Oli seen to be raking it up for political gain back at home.
The Indian establishment views the former prime minister as “pro-China”. Even before Oli began his first term in October 2015 (it lasted until August 2016), India and Nepal had a bitter falling out over Nepal’s new constitution adopted just a month earlier.
Delhi was upset that the final draft of the Constitution did not include the marginalisation concerns of the Madhesi and the Tharu — two ethnic groups that live in the southern Terai region along the border with India and constitute 40 per cent of Nepal’s population. Madhesis also have strong cross-border ethnic ties.
A blockade of Nepal along the Indian border with tacit support from Delhi crippled supplies to the landlocked country for several months, triggering massive shortages.
Oli turned to China for supplies, signing a trade and transit treaty during a visit to Beijing.
When his government was ousted within a year, Oli blamed India. He became prime minister again in 2018 following the 2017 elections after the unification of the Nepal Communist Party (United Marxist Leninist) with Prachanda’s CPN (Maoist Centre).
China is believed to have played a key role in the unification. In this second term, India-Nepal relations virtually broke down over the map controversy.
Following Deuba’s visit in April this year, Prime Minister Modi visited Lumbini, his fifth visit to Nepal and the first ever by an Indian head of government to the Buddhist holy site, Lord Buddha’s birth place.
Amid discussions on energy co-operation, talk about territory and the call for revising the Indio-Nepal Friendship Treaty quietened.
Dark horses
This election was supposed to bring big change in Nepal. That may not happen, as the old parties have still swung enough seats to put them in position for government formation. But several big guns, including ministers and incumbents have been sent packing by voters.
In the Madhes region, a new challenger has risen in the form of Janamat Party, led by C K Raut, who once campaigned for the region’s secession. The Madesh vote, earlier held by two parties, is now splintered.
Whatever the shape or colour of the new dispensation, the view from Delhi is that it is bound to be shaky and may not last its term due to the pulls and pressures from within.
India-Nepal ties post election
For India, the main challenge in Nepal is China’s looming presence. The nature of the India-China contestation in Nepal is different from elsewhere in South Asia.
Nepal and India have an open 1800 km -long border. Citizens of both countries can traverse this border freely, to live and work.
But sandwiched between the regional giant and an Asian superpower, Nepal is in the crosshairs of intense geopolitical rivalry. This is not necessarily bad as it gives Nepal enormous leverage with both sides, which it could use to secure the best “deal” for itself.
But it also means constant tensions with both neighbours. An alarm is bound to go up in Delhi when China is awarded projects such as the Terai-Madhes Expressway (cancelled by the Nepal Supreme Court earlier this week after Indian bidder Afcons mounted a legal challenge to it), or when China and Nepal discuss railway projects extending to Lumbini, close to the Indian border.
The United States is a recent entrant to the contest, with its interests becoming apparent in the manner in which Deuba’s government managed to find parliamentary support to ratify a long pending but contentious $ 500 million Millennium Challenge Corporation fund hours before it was due to expire.
The agreement will finance road building, building, power transmission lines, and facilitate cross-border electricity trade between Nepal and India.
The ratification has triggered concern that the “Quad has arrived in Nepal” . US diplomacy in Nepal is now more high profile than it used to be.
For Delhi, this is good news right now, as the US presence is seen as strengthening its hands, but for the long term, if geopolitical alliances shift, and India’s own partnerships evolve, there might be a different view.
Rae pointed out that energy trade has been the “big success story” in India-Nepal relations. During Deuba’s visit, the two sides signed a “vision document” on energy co-operation, agreeing to hydropower generation its “cornerstone”.
The elements of this co-operation include joint development of power generation projects in Nepal, development of cross-border transmission infra, bi-directional power trade with appropriate market access on both sides, co-ordination with each other’s national grids, and sharing operational information and technology.
They agreed to expand this co-operation to other countries in the Bhutan Bangladesh India Nepal sub-regional grouping
Other important news
India’s entire 2/3-wheeler fleet needs $285 bn to turn electric
The complete electrification of India’s entire fleet of two and three-wheelers will require financing to the tune of $285 billion (nearly ₹23 lakh crore), according to the World Economic Forum’s White Paper published in collaboration with NITI Aayog.
The WEF paper said the last-mile and urban delivery fleets were leading the adoption of electric two-and three-wheelers in India and were likely the first segments to transition completely to electric.
Baguette makes it to UNESCO intangible cultural heritage list
Baguette — the staple French bread — was inscribed into the UN’s list of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) on November 30.
The baguette is a long and thin loaf made of flour, water, salt and yeast, and is consumed as a staple in France.
What is intangible cultural heritage according to UNESCO?
UNESCO defines “intangible” as “expressions that have been passed from one generation to another, have evolved in response to their environments and contribute to giving us a sense of identity and continuity…”
According to an official document by UNESCO, ‘intangible cultural heritage’ includes “oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe or the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts.”
It ascribes importance to “the wealth of knowledge and skills that is transmitted through it from one generation to the next,” which necessitates their preservation.
The document states that the safeguarding of an ICH means ensuring that it “remains an active part of life for today’s generations that they can hand on to tomorrow.”
The adoption of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the ICH by the General Conference of UNESCO in 2003 was a crucial step towards preserving intangible heritage from across the globe.
UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity was established in the year 2008.
What are India’s intangible cultural symbols on the UNESCO list?
The elements which have been on the representative list of intangible cultural heritage from India in the past decade include –
- Kolkata’s Durga Puja (2021)
- Kumbh Mela (2017)
- Navroz (2016), Yoga (2016)
- Traditional brass and copper craft of utensil-making among coppersmiths of Punjab (2014)
- Sankirtana, a ritual musical performance of Manipur (2013)
- The Buddhist chanting of Ladakh (2012)
- Chhau dance, Kalbelia folk songs and dance of Rajasthan, and Mudiyettu, a dance drama from Kerala (2010)
- Ramman, a religious festival and theatre performance of Garhwal in the Himalayas (2009)
- Kutiyattam or Sanskrit theatre, and Vedic chanting (2008).
Recent Posts
- Items provided through FPS
- The scale of rations
- The price of items distributed through FPS across states.
- Kyoto Protocol of 2001
- Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) as well as REDD+ mechanisms proposed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
- United Nations-mandated Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDG)
- Paris Agreement
- Carbon Neutrality
- multistrata agroforestry,
- afforestation,
- tree intercropping,
- biomass production,
- regenerative agriculture,
- conservation agriculture,
- farmland restoration,
- silvopasture,
- tropical-staple tree,
- intercropping,
- bamboo and indigenous tree–based land management.
Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.
Globally, around 80% of wastewater flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused, according to the United Nations.
This can pose a significant environmental and health threat.
In the absence of cost-effective, sustainable, disruptive water management solutions, about 70% of sewage is discharged untreated into India’s water bodies.
A staggering 21% of diseases are caused by contaminated water in India, according to the World Bank, and one in five children die before their fifth birthday because of poor sanitation and hygiene conditions, according to Startup India.
As we confront these public health challenges emerging out of environmental concerns, expanding the scope of public health/environmental engineering science becomes pivotal.
For India to achieve its sustainable development goals of clean water and sanitation and to address the growing demands for water consumption and preservation of both surface water bodies and groundwater resources, it is essential to find and implement innovative ways of treating wastewater.
It is in this context why the specialised cadre of public health engineers, also known as sanitation engineers or environmental engineers, is best suited to provide the growing urban and rural water supply and to manage solid waste and wastewater.
Traditionally, engineering and public health have been understood as different fields.
Currently in India, civil engineering incorporates a course or two on environmental engineering for students to learn about wastewater management as a part of their pre-service and in-service training.
Most often, civil engineers do not have adequate skills to address public health problems. And public health professionals do not have adequate engineering skills.
India aims to supply 55 litres of water per person per day by 2024 under its Jal Jeevan Mission to install functional household tap connections.
The goal of reaching every rural household with functional tap water can be achieved in a sustainable and resilient manner only if the cadre of public health engineers is expanded and strengthened.
In India, public health engineering is executed by the Public Works Department or by health officials.
This differs from international trends. To manage a wastewater treatment plant in Europe, for example, a candidate must specialise in wastewater engineering.
Furthermore, public health engineering should be developed as an interdisciplinary field. Engineers can significantly contribute to public health in defining what is possible, identifying limitations, and shaping workable solutions with a problem-solving approach.
Similarly, public health professionals can contribute to engineering through well-researched understanding of health issues, measured risks and how course correction can be initiated.
Once both meet, a public health engineer can identify a health risk, work on developing concrete solutions such as new health and safety practices or specialised equipment, in order to correct the safety concern..
There is no doubt that the majority of diseases are water-related, transmitted through consumption of contaminated water, vectors breeding in stagnated water, or lack of adequate quantity of good quality water for proper personal hygiene.
Diseases cannot be contained unless we provide good quality and adequate quantity of water. Most of the world’s diseases can be prevented by considering this.
Training our young minds towards creating sustainable water management systems would be the first step.
Currently, institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) are considering initiating public health engineering as a separate discipline.
To leverage this opportunity even further, India needs to scale up in the same direction.
Consider this hypothetical situation: Rajalakshmi, from a remote Karnataka village spots a business opportunity.
She knows that flowers, discarded in the thousands by temples can be handcrafted into incense sticks.
She wants to find a market for the product and hopefully, employ some people to help her. Soon enough though, she discovers that starting a business is a herculean task for a person like her.
There is a laborious process of rules and regulations to go through, bribes to pay on the way and no actual means to transport her product to its market.
After making her first batch of agarbathis and taking it to Bengaluru by bus, she decides the venture is not easy and gives up.
On the flipside of this is a young entrepreneur in Bengaluru. Let’s call him Deepak. He wants to start an internet-based business selling sustainably made agarbathis.
He has no trouble getting investors and to mobilise supply chains. His paperwork is over in a matter of days and his business is set up quickly and ready to grow.
Never mind that the business is built on aggregation of small sellers who will not see half the profit .
Is this scenario really all that hypothetical or emblematic of how we think about entrepreneurship in India?
Between our national obsession with unicorns on one side and glorifying the person running a pakora stall for survival as an example of viable entrepreneurship on the other, is the middle ground in entrepreneurship—a space that should have seen millions of thriving small and medium businesses, but remains so sparsely occupied that you could almost miss it.
If we are to achieve meaningful economic growth in our country, we need to incorporate, in our national conversation on entrepreneurship, ways of addressing the missing middle.
Spread out across India’s small towns and cities, this is a class of entrepreneurs that have been hit by a triple wave over the last five years, buffeted first by the inadvertent fallout of demonetization, being unprepared for GST, and then by the endless pain of the covid-19 pandemic.
As we finally appear to be reaching some level of normality, now is the opportune time to identify the kind of industries that make up this layer, the opportunities they should be afforded, and the best ways to scale up their functioning in the shortest time frame.
But, why pay so much attention to these industries when we should be celebrating, as we do, our booming startup space?
It is indeed true that India has the third largest number of unicorns in the world now, adding 42 in 2021 alone. Braving all the disruptions of the pandemic, it was a year in which Indian startups raised $24.1 billion in equity investments, according to a NASSCOM-Zinnov report last year.
However, this is a story of lopsided growth.
The cities of Bengaluru, Delhi/NCR, and Mumbai together claim three-fourths of these startup deals while emerging hubs like Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, and Jaipur account for the rest.
This leap in the startup space has created 6.6 lakh direct jobs and a few million indirect jobs. Is that good enough for a country that sends 12 million fresh graduates to its workforce every year?
It doesn’t even make a dent on arguably our biggest unemployment in recent history—in April 2020 when the country shutdown to battle covid-19.
Technology-intensive start-ups are constrained in their ability to create jobs—and hybrid work models and artificial intelligence (AI) have further accelerated unemployment.
What we need to focus on, therefore, is the labour-intensive micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME). Here, we begin to get to a definitional notion of what we called the mundane middle and the problems it currently faces.
India has an estimated 63 million enterprises. But, out of 100 companies, 95 are micro enterprises—employing less than five people, four are small to medium and barely one is large.
The questions to ask are: why are Indian MSMEs failing to grow from micro to small and medium and then be spurred on to make the leap into large companies?
At the Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME), we have advocated for a National Mission for Mass Entrepreneurship, the need for which is more pronounced now than ever before.
Whenever India has worked to achieve a significant economic milestone in a limited span of time, it has worked best in mission mode. Think of the Green Revolution or Operation Flood.
From across various states, there are enough examples of approaches that work to catalyse mass entrepreneurship.
The introduction of entrepreneurship mindset curriculum (EMC) in schools through alliance mode of working by a number of agencies has shown significant improvement in academic and life outcomes.
Through creative teaching methods, students are encouraged to inculcate 21st century skills like creativity, problem solving, critical thinking and leadership which are not only foundational for entrepreneurship but essential to thrive in our complex world.
Udhyam Learning Foundation has been involved with the Government of Delhi since 2018 to help young people across over 1,000 schools to develop an entrepreneurial mindset.
One pilot programme introduced the concept of ‘seed money’ and saw 41 students turn their ideas into profit-making ventures. Other programmes teach qualities like grit and resourcefulness.
If you think these are isolated examples, consider some larger data trends.
The Observer Research Foundation and The World Economic Forum released the Young India and Work: A Survey of Youth Aspirations in 2018.
When asked which type of work arrangement they prefer, 49% of the youth surveyed said they prefer a job in the public sector.
However, 38% selected self-employment as an entrepreneur as their ideal type of job. The spirit of entrepreneurship is latent and waiting to be unleashed.
The same can be said for building networks of successful women entrepreneurs—so crucial when the participation of women in the Indian economy has declined to an abysmal 20%.
The majority of India’s 63 million firms are informal —fewer than 20% are registered for GST.
Research shows that companies that start out as formal enterprises become two-three times more productive than a similar informal business.
So why do firms prefer to be informal? In most cases, it’s because of the sheer cost and difficulty of complying with the different regulations.
We have academia and non-profits working as ecosystem enablers providing insights and evidence-based models for growth. We have large private corporations and philanthropic and funding agencies ready to invest.
It should be in the scope of a National Mass Entrepreneurship Mission to bring all of them together to work in mission mode so that the gap between thought leadership and action can finally be bridged.
Heat wave is a condition of air temperature which becomes fatal to human body when exposed. Often times, it is defined based on the temperature thresholds over a region in terms of actual temperature or its departure from normal.
Heat wave is considered if maximum temperature of a station reaches at least 400C or more for Plains and at least 300C or more for Hilly regions.
a) Based on Departure from Normal
Heat Wave: Departure from normal is 4.50C to 6.40C
Severe Heat Wave: Departure from normal is >6.40C
b) Based on Actual Maximum Temperature
Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≥ 450C
Severe Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≥470C
If above criteria met at least in 2 stations in a Meteorological sub-division for at least two consecutive days and it declared on the second day
It is occurring mainly during March to June and in some rare cases even in July. The peak month of the heat wave over India is May.
Heat wave generally occurs over plains of northwest India, Central, East & north Peninsular India during March to June.
It covers Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, parts of Maharashtra & Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telengana.
Sometimes it occurs over Tamilnadu & Kerala also.
Heat waves adversely affect human and animal lives.
However, maximum temperatures more than 45°C observed mainly over Rajasthan and Vidarbha region in month of May.
a. Transportation / Prevalence of hot dry air over a region (There should be a region of warm dry air and appropriate flow pattern for transporting hot air over the region).
b. Absence of moisture in the upper atmosphere (As the presence of moisture restricts the temperature rise).
c. The sky should be practically cloudless (To allow maximum insulation over the region).
d. Large amplitude anti-cyclonic flow over the area.
Heat waves generally develop over Northwest India and spread gradually eastwards & southwards but not westwards (since the prevailing winds during the season are westerly to northwesterly).
The health impacts of Heat Waves typically involve dehydration, heat cramps, heat exhaustion and/or heat stroke. The signs and symptoms are as follows:
1. Heat Cramps: Ederna (swelling) and Syncope (Fainting) generally accompanied by fever below 39*C i.e.102*F.
2. Heat Exhaustion: Fatigue, weakness, dizziness, headache, nausea, vomiting, muscle cramps and sweating.
3. Heat Stoke: Body temperatures of 40*C i.e. 104*F or more along with delirium, seizures or coma. This is a potential fatal condition.
Norman Borlaug and MS Swaminathan in a wheat field in north India in March 1964
Political independence does not have much meaning without economic independence.
One of the important indicators of economic independence is self-sufficiency in food grain production.
The overall food grain scenario in India has undergone a drastic transformation in the last 75 years.
India was a food-deficit country on the eve of Independence. It had to import foodgrains to feed its people.
The situation became more acute during the 1960s. The imported food had to be sent to households within the shortest possible time.
The situation was referred to as ‘ship to mouth’.
Presently, Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns are overflowing with food grain stocks and the Union government is unable to ensure remunerative price to the farmers for their produce.
This transformation, however, was not smooth.
In the 1960s, it was disgraceful, but unavoidable for the Prime Minister of India to go to foreign countries with a begging bowl.
To avoid such situations, the government motivated agricultural scientists to make India self-sufficient in food grain production.
As a result, high-yield varieties (HYV) were developed. The combination of seeds, water and fertiliser gave a boost to food grain production in the country which is generally referred to as the Green Revolution.
The impact of the Green Revolution, however, was confined to a few areas like Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh in the north and (unified) Andhra Pradesh in the south.
Most of the remaining areas were deficit in food grain production.
Therefore the Union government had to procure food grain from surplus states to distribute it among deficit ones.
At the time, farmers in the surplus states viewed procurement as a tax as they were prevented from selling their surplus foodgrains at high prices in the deficit states.
As production of food grains increased, there was decentralisation of procurement. State governments were permitted to procure grain to meet their requirement.
The distribution of food grains was left to the concerned state governments.
Kerala, for instance, was totally a deficit state and had to adopt a distribution policy which was almost universal in nature.
Some states adopted a vigorous public distribution system (PDS) policy.
It is not out of place to narrate an interesting incident regarding food grain distribution in Andhra Pradesh. The Government of Andhra Pradesh in the early 1980s implemented a highly subsidised rice scheme under which poor households were given five kilograms of rice per person per month, subject to a ceiling of 25 kilograms at Rs 2 per kg. The state government required two million tonnes of rice to implement the scheme. But it received only on one million tonne from the Union government.
The state government had to purchase another million tonne of rice from rice millers in the state at a negotiated price, which was higher than the procurement price offered by the Centre, but lower than the open market price.
A large number of studies have revealed that many poor households have been excluded from the PDS network, while many undeserving households have managed to get benefits from it.
Various policy measures have been implemented to streamline PDS. A revamped PDS was introduced in 1992 to make food grain easily accessible to people in tribal and hilly areas, by providing relatively higher subsidies.
Targeted PDS was launched in 1997 to focus on households below the poverty line (BPL).
Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) was introduced to cover the poorest of the poor.
Annapoorna Scheme was introduced in 2001 to distribute 10 kg of food grains free of cost to destitutes above the age of 65 years.
In 2013, the National Food Security Act (NFSA) was passed by Parliament to expand and legalise the entitlement.
Conventionally, a card holder has to go to a particular fair price shop (FPS) and that particular shop has to be open when s/he visits it. Stock must be available in the shop. The card holder should also have sufficient time to stand in the queue to purchase his quota. The card holder has to put with rough treatment at the hands of a FPS dealer.
These problems do not exist once ration cards become smart cards. A card holder can go to any shop which is open and has available stocks. In short, the scheme has become card holder-friendly and curbed the monopoly power of the FPS dealer. Some states other than Chhattisgarh are also trying to introduce such a scheme on an experimental basis.
More recently, the Government of India has introduced a scheme called ‘One Nation One Ration Card’ which enables migrant labourers to purchase rations from the place where they reside. In August 2021, it was operational in 34 states and Union territories.
The intentions of the scheme are good but there are some hurdles in its implementation which need to be addressed. These problems arise on account of variation in:
It is not clear whether a migrant labourer gets items provided in his/her native state or those in the state s/he has migrated to and what prices will s/he be able to purchase them.
The Centre must learn lessons from the experiences of different countries in order to make PDS sustainable in the long-run.
For instance, Sri Lanka recently shifted to organic manure from chemical fertiliser without required planning. Consequently, it had to face an acute food shortage due to a shortage of organic manure.
Some analysts have cautioned against excessive dependence on chemical fertiliser.
Phosphorus is an important input in the production of chemical fertiliser and about 70-80 per cent of known resources of phosphorus are available only in Morocco.
There is possibility that Morocco may manipulate the price of phosphorus.
Providing excessive subsidies and unemployment relief may make people dependent, as in the case of Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
It is better to teach a person how to catch a fish rather than give free fish to him / her.
Hence, the government should give the right amount of subsidy to deserving people.
The government has to increase livestock as in the case of Uruguay to make the food basket broad-based and nutritious. It has to see to it that the organic content in the soil is adequate, in order to make cultivation environmentally-friendly and sustainable in the long-run.
In short, India has transformed from a food-deficit state to a food-surplus one 75 years after independence. However, the government must adopt environmental-friendly measures to sustain this achievement.
Agroforestry is an intentional integration of trees on farmland.
Globally, it is practised by 1.2 billion people on 10 per cent area of total agricultural lands (over 1 billion hectares).
It is widely popular as ‘a low hanging fruit’ due to its multifarious tangible and intangible benefits.
The net carbon sequestered in agroforestry is 11.35 tonnes of carbon per ha
A panacea for global issues such as climate change, land degradation, pollution and food security, agroforestry is highlighted as a key strategy to fulfil several targets:
In 2017, a New York Times bestseller Project Drawdown published by 200 scientists around the world with a goal of reversing climate change, came up with the most plausible 100 solutions to slash–down greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Out of these 100 solutions, 11 strategies were highlighted under the umbrella of agroforestry such as:-
Nowadays, tree-based farming in India is considered a silver bullet to cure all issues.
It was promoted under the Green India mission of 2001, six out of eight missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) and National Agroforestry and Bamboo Mission (NABM), 2017 to bring a third of the geographical area under tree cover and offsetting GHG emissions.
These long-term attempts by the Government of India have helped enhance the agroforestry area to 13.75 million hectares.
The net carbon sequestered in agroforestry is 11.35 tonnes of carbon per ha and carbon sequestration potential is 0.35 tonnes of carbon per ha per year at the country level, according to the Central Agroforestry Research Institute, Jhansi.
India will reduce an additional 2.5-3 billion tonnes of CO2 by increasing tree cover. This extra tree cover could be achieved through agroforestry systems because of their ability to withstand minimum inputs under extreme situations.
Here are some examples which portray the role of agroforestry in achieving at least nine out of the 17 SDGs through sustainable food production, ecosystem services and economic benefits:
SDG 1 — No Poverty: Almost 736 million people still live in extreme poverty. Diversification through integrating trees in agriculture unlocks the treasure to provide multifunctional benefits.
Studies carried out in 2003 in the arid regions of India reported a 10-15 per cent increase in crop yield with Prosopis cineraria (khejari). Adoption of agroforestry increases income & production by reducing the cost of input & production.
SDG 2 — Zero hunger: Tree-based systems provide food and monetary returns. Traditional agroforestry systems like Prosopis cineraria and Madhuca longifolia (Mahua) provide edible returns during drought years known as “lifeline to the poor people”.
Studies showed that 26-50 per cent of households involved in tree products collection and selling act as a coping strategy to deal with hunger.
SDG 3 — Good health and well-being: Human wellbeing and health are depicted through the extent of healthy ecosystems and services they provide.
Agroforestry contributes increased access to diverse nutritious food, supply of medicine, clean air and reduces heat stress.
Vegetative buffers can filter airstreams of particulates by removing dust, gas, microbial constituents and heavy metals.
SDG 5 — Gender equality: Throughout the world around 3 billion people depend on firewood for cooking.
In this, women are the main collectors and it brings drudgery and health issues.
A study from India stated that almost 374 hours per year are spent by women for collection of firewood. Growing trees nearby provides easy access to firewood and diverts time to productive purposes.
SDG 6 — Clean Water and Sanitation: Water is probably the most vital resource for our survival. The inherent capacity of trees offers hydrological regulation as evapotranspiration recharges atmospheric moisture for rainfall; enhanced soil infiltration recharges groundwater; obstructs sediment flow; rainwater filtration by accumulation of heavy metals.
An extensive study in 35 nations published in 2017 concluded that 30 per cent of tree cover in watersheds resulted in improved sanitisation and reduced diarrheal disease.
SDG 7 — Affordable & Clean Energy: Wood fuels are the only source of energy to billions of poverty-stricken people.
Though trees are substitutes of natural forests, modern technologies in the form of biofuels, ethanol, electricity generation and dendro-biomass sources are truly affordable and clean.
Ideal agroforestry models possess fast-growing, high coppicing, higher calorific value and short rotation (2-3 years) characteristics and provide biomass of 200-400 tonnes per ha.
SDG 12 — Responsible consumption and production: The production of agricultural and wood-based commodities on a sustainable basis without depleting natural resources and as low as external inputs (chemical fertilisers and pesticides) to reduce the ecological footprints.
SDG 13 — Climate action: Globally, agricultural production accounts for up to 24 per cent of GHG emissions from around 22.2 million square km of agricultural area, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.
A 2016 study depicted that conversion of agricultural land to agroforestry sequesters about 27.2± 13.5 tonnes CO2 equivalent per ha per year after establishment of systems.
Trees on farmland mitigate 109.34 million tonnes CO2 equivalent annually from 15.31 million ha, according to a 2017 report. This may offset a third of the total GHG emissions from the agriculture sector of India.
SDG 15 — Life on Land: Agroforestry ‘mimics the forest ecosystem’ to contribute conservation of flora and faunas, creating corridors, buffers to existing reserves and multi-functional landscapes.
Delivery of ecosystem services of trees regulates life on land. A one-hectare area of homegardens in Kerala was found to have 992 trees from 66 species belonging to 31 families, a recent study showed.
The report of the World Agroforestry Centre highlighted those 22 countries that have registered agroforestry as a key strategy in achieving their unconditional national contributions.
Recently, the Government of India has allocated significant financial support for promotion of agroforestry at grassroot level to make the Indian economy as carbon neutral. This makes agroforestry a low-hanging fruit to achieve the global goals.