“Probability is not a mere computation of odds on the dice or more complicated variants; it is the acceptance of the lack of certainty in our knowledge and the development of methods for dealing with our ignorance.” – Nicholas Nassim Taleb.
The whole significance of this quote is profound. On close observation, one can glean three aspects: one, that life is uncertain; two, that circumstances are best described by probability; and three, that the realisation of the former aphorisms best equips us with tools to deal with the “odds that we have been dealt with”, so to speak. Indeed, one can argue that the greatest fortunes in modern history have been made addressing uncertainty, whether it be the invention of the light bulb to rid us of darkness or Calculus as a model to understand change.
But, with declining numeracy of the general populace and the consumption of “mindless information”, starkly exacerbated further by the intentional or misguided peccancy of journalists and those engaged in the reporting of news and events, the virtues of addressing uncertainty and working with systems that are inherently imperfect have been entirely forgotten. And as a result, we are forced to answer in binaries to questions that concern us greatly, today.
Nothing highlights this better than recent discussion about the government’s push for Digital India that seeks to “transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy”. The programme focuses on three key areas:
- Digital Infrastructure: such as, the availability of internet, creation of a digital identity and public cloud access.
- eGovernance And Services: services across departments and jurisdictions enabled real time on online and mobile platforms.
- Digital Literacy: access to resources in Indian languages and enabling collaboration and participative governance.
By 2020, number of internet users in India is expected to grow to 770 million, with over 75 per cent new users from rural India (source – NASSCOM/Akamai) and mobile users expected to grow to 990 million (source – CISCO). Viewed in this context, Digital India has a real chance of translating its lofty goals to tangible results.
Pivotal to the Digital India effort has been Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s thrust on Jan Dhan, Aadhaar and Mobile (JAM). The Jan Dhan Yojana was launched in August, this year, to facilitate savings and institutional credit among the unbanked masses; it has since resulted in over 25 crore accounts and over Rs 74,000 crore in deposits, till date. The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, benefits and services) Act was passed as a money bill in parliament earlier in March to provide legislative support to the Aadhaar project.
The JAM trinity is poised to improve last mile service delivery, which has long been a problem in India. For instance, the government has commenced direct transfer of LPG subsidy into the bank accounts of households seeking it.
A far cry from the days of leakages, bribes and corruption that had mired any benefit transferred from the Centre. Indeed, who can forget former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s rather candid quote in 1985: “Of every rupee spent by the government, only 17 paise reached the intended beneficiary”. (A very conservative estimate by some accounts.)
But, as is likely with any far-reaching government measure, Digital India has received its share of criticism, heightened further post the recent demonetisation drive during which the Prime Minister has encouraged people to adopt cashless transactions.
Ironically, the harshest criticism has come from the section of the populace that has prided itself on technology adoption and has been the primary target demographic for India’s fabled startup innovation.
The arguments against revolve around two primary points: one, that privacy of users will be compromised with potential for mass government surveillance and two, that security of digital systems is suspect and prone to hacking.
Although, both arguments are not without merit, they must be used to improve systems and processes rather than, as it is being positioned now as an argument against digital, itself. The latter is out of bounds, anyway, as the world has been fundamentally disrupted by technology.
Much of this disruption has been enabled by data. Modern computing methods, such as Big Data and Analytics (ably enabled by cloud), digest vast amounts of information about users to produce actionable insights that translate to improved quality of services by many orders of magnitude.
From ordering food and booking cabs to payment transfers and smart wearables, our way of life has been completely revolutionised. If one were to plot usefulness against importance of data shared, it would look somewhat like this:
Note – reorder parameters at will
Intelligent systems are evolving tremendously. Machine learning algorithms progressively learn from data.
Trained with one or many data sets, they will be able to predict a desired outcome from a new, unknown set of data.
The possibilities are immense, both, for individuals and communities at large. Especially, here in India, which in the words of Nandan Nilekani, former chairman of the UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) and technology industry veteran “will go from a data poor to data rich nation in the next five years.” Further, he also invoked Clarke’s third law (any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic) to describe the project.
We have now passed the point where opportunity cost of keeping one’s data confidential is significantly higher than benefit of retaining privacy, now.
Of course, there is potential for misuse. But, since intelligent systems are designed to continuously optimise for benefit, the effort and expertise required to, say, reroute cars into leaping off bridges or of making surreptitious deposits to Nigerian Princes will steadily increase.
And so, too, if one’s fingerprints were artificially planted on a crime scene, they now have to corroborate with more data points than ever before.
A mass government surveillance project of the type carried out by the America’s NSA, which as revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, was sweeping Americans’ phone records, had direct access to servers of US tech giants like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple, among others, and also could search “nearly everything a user does on the internet” through data it intercepts across the world, is nearly improbable to replicate here in India.
It is important to note that the NSA has over six decades of legacy as an organisation. Its origins go back to the First World War where under dire circumstances the executive branch acted without direct Congressional authorisation. Although, now supposedly subject to Congressional oversight, the organisation’s legal accountability is suspect.
The judiciary in India, on the other hand, is robust and has been exceedingly enterprising in recent times, much to the chagrin of the political class. In fact in September 2013, the Supreme Court of India issued an interim order that “no person should suffer for not getting Aadhaar” as the government cannot deny a service to a resident if s/he does not possess Aadhaar, as it is voluntary and not mandatory.
In another interim order in August 2015, the Supreme Court of India ruled that “UIDAI/Aadhaar will not be used for any other purposes except PDS, kerosene and LPG distribution system” and made it clear that even for availing these facilities Aadhaar card will not be mandatory.
The same have been further reinforced in the courts this year, while extending it to more public welfare schemes, such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, National Social Assistance Programme (Old Age Pensions, Widow Pensions, Disability Pensions), Prime Minister’s Jan Dhan Yojana, and Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation.
With the necessary sense of proportion it is not difficult to surmise how implementing NSA-type state overreach would meet multiple roadblocks in India.
The present government has up until now prioritised communicating the benefits of Aadhaar over addressing possible security concerns. Perhaps, rightly so.
And the same is reflected in the enrollment numbers; as of 26th November 2016, 1.08 billion people in India have been tagged with an Aadhaar number. The benefits have already started to accrue for the section of the demographic that requires it the most. But, the government would be better served in adopting a more collaborative approach with those others who are sceptical to collectively improve security systems and processes.
It could accomplish this through peer-reviews, public AMA (ask me anything) sessions, and opening up the developer ecosystem to a wider base. Indeed, it’s a fundamental right that one can assume from the government, where it cannot be afforded from the likes of Google, Facebook or Apple.
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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.