1.Right of Persons with disabilities Bill, 2014 passed by Rajya sabha:
- The list of disabilities has been expanded from 7 to 21 for example the person with psychosocial & intellectual disability, cerebral palsy, autism, muscular dystrophy have been included like down syndrome(it is a genetic disorder leading to mental retardation in child)
- The disability has been defined as an evolving and dynamic concept
- Quantum for reservation for person suffering with disabilities have been increased from 3% to 4% in government jobs.
- In higher education the reservation has been extended to 5 percent from the current 3 percent.
- It gives effect to UN convention on persons with disabilities and related matters.
- It provides for imprisonment ranging from six months to two years along with fine ranging from Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 5 Lakhs for discriminating against the person with disabilities.
- Bill strengthens the office of chief commissioner and state commissioner for persons with disabilities . They will act as regulatory bodies.
- Does not completely induct all the principles of UNCRPD and even dilutes few of them. Further there is emphasis on the disability of the person rather than on the removal of restrictions that are present.
- It has restricted the benefits of reservation to disabled people with more than 40% disabilities.
- The bill also doesn’t recognize the right to vote via secret ballot for disabled and even contest elections, hold offices & perform all public functions.
The parliamentary standing committee on social justice & empowerment has recommended the following:
- Removing the word ‘disabilities’ from the bill as it provides a wrong connotation to these people who are bestowed with extra talent & thereby limits the potential to exhibit it.
- Including within the ambit of communication: sign language, video, visual displays.
- Including a sub section to deal with women & children with disabilities.
- The language of the bill should be gender neutral & transgender be included within the ambit of disabled
2. Primary education: Public schools vs Private schools
- Making a massive supply side push by creating a sufficient schooling network covering urban and rural areas.
- Students were provided with uniforms, classrooms, textbooks.
- Activity based learning: it is a pedagogy that teaches each child at the right level rather than teaching the average learner and it uses a broader cognitive approach than learning by rote. There are defined competency milestones that also teaches each student the cognitive level they are in. It should use the principle that ‘no child left behind’.
- Innovative solutions like in Tamil Nadu: to tackle migration dropout due to “cotton led migration” the schools also shift to such migration areas as non residential schools.
Child Drug Abuse in India
Background :-
Recently Supreme Court ordered the government to come up with a plan to tackle child drug abuse, acting on a petition from Nobel Peace laureate Kailash Satyarthi´s child rights group.Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save Childhood Movement) filed the petition before the Supreme Court in 2014
Statistics :-
With government figures showing almost 20 percent of addicts in India are under 21, the Supreme Court said more needed to be done to educate young people about the dangers of substance abuse in India.
The court ordered govt. to “evolve a national action plan within six months to combat drug abuse amongst school children”.
A 2013 report by the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights estimated 40-70 percent of India´s 18 million homeless children were exposed to some form substance abuse. Many of them started taking drugs as young as five years old, the report found.
Regional Analysis :-
In Punjab the numbers are ridiculous nearly 75% of its youth are severely addicted to drugs, that’s 3 out of every 4 children.
Mumbai, Hyderabad and other cities around the country are quickly gaining a reputation for their drug usage; and the population in each of these cities continues to grow.
Delhi is filled with rehab centres trying to keep up with the flow of addicts. Over 500 centres across our country work together to nurse addicts back into healthy productive lifestyles but addiction is becoming too much for India.
The menace of drugs and alcohol has woven itself deep into the fabric of our society. As its effects reach towards our youth, India’s future generation will have to compete with drugs like cannabis, alcohol and tobacco.
More Indian youngsters struggle with addiction than ever before. Peer pressure, adolescent immaturity and irresponsible parenting is the three-headed monster luring our children towards addiction and a life of suffering and regret.
Fixing the youth drug problem
Nearly 75% of Indian homes house at least one drug user,usually a parent, and often the father. Experts tell us that children as young as 13 and 14 regularly experiment with intoxicants.
Instead of wondering why our youth are becoming addicts, we should start asking better questions. How do we stop them? How do we keep the stuff out of their little hands and away from their innocent minds?
The answer to these questions are two sided:
1. There needs to be an effort to prevent drug and alcohol addiction.
2. De-Addiction Centres need to focus in on the youth of India.
Preventing Addiction
Although often neglected, we need to give special attention to our young community who have never abused drugs.
The old saying, “Preventing addiction is more effective than curing it,” may seem idealistic, but it demonstrates a mindset that Indians need to adopt. While many programmes aim at presenting alternatives to addicts, we need to remember the community that has never abused drugs.
Creating healthy and attractive alternatives to drug abuse can curb the number of first time users. The United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention recently came out with a handbook to help communities prevent drug abuse. Some basic prevention ideas include:
- Promotion of Health: The community needs to promote healthy lifestyles through personal and cultural practices. By setting an example of health you will discourage damaging and dangerous lifestyles.
- Focus on people and encouragement of social interaction: Promoting social interaction between old and young can only be done in a social environment. Create this environment through organized activities that all ages can partake in.
- Local involvement of young people and respect for cultural values: The activities you chose should focus on young people. Be sure to respect cultural traditions of the community.
- Encouragement of positive alternatives: Develop these alternatives with cultural values in mind, and understanding what appeals to the younger generation.
- Long-term perspective: Don’t be discouraged if results aren’t immediate. Preventing drug use takes time keeping a long-term perspective is important.
- Community development: Focus on developing the fundamentals of your community. Education, health and social services, housing, sanitation, and income-generating activities are important ideas to focus in on.
Helping our youth come clean
The second side to India’s addiction problem comes in the form of our present addicts. And unfortunately, addiction currently plagues millions of Indians both young and old.
Solving this problem won’t be easy either, but the solution will come in the form of better youth de-addiction centres. Currently, only 33% of the 580 centres listed offer youth de-addiciton. This statistic must change if India hopes to save its youth.
Recent Posts
- In the Large States category (overall), Chhattisgarh ranks 1st, followed by Odisha and Telangana, whereas, towards the bottom are Maharashtra at 16th, Assam at 17th and Gujarat at 18th. Gujarat is one State that has seen startling performance ranking 5th in the PAI 2021 Index outperforming traditionally good performing States like Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, but ranks last in terms of Delta
- In the Small States category (overall), Nagaland tops, followed by Mizoram and Tripura. Towards the tail end of the overall Delta ranking is Uttarakhand (9th), Arunachal Pradesh (10th) and Meghalaya (11th). Nagaland despite being a poor performer in the PAI 2021 Index has come out to be the top performer in Delta, similarly, Mizoram’s performance in Delta is also reflected in it’s ranking in the PAI 2021 Index
- In terms of Equity, in the Large States category, Chhattisgarh has the best Delta rate on Equity indicators, this is also reflected in the performance of Chhattisgarh in the Equity Pillar where it ranks 4th. Following Chhattisgarh is Odisha ranking 2nd in Delta-Equity ranking, but ranks 17th in the Equity Pillar of PAI 2021. Telangana ranks 3rd in Delta-Equity ranking even though it is not a top performer in this Pillar in the overall PAI 2021 Index. Jharkhand (16th), Uttar Pradesh (17th) and Assam (18th) rank at the bottom with Uttar Pradesh’s performance in line with the PAI 2021 Index
- Odisha and Nagaland have shown the best year-on-year improvement under 12 Key Development indicators.
- In the 60:40 division States, the top three performers are Kerala, Goa and Tamil Nadu and, the bottom three performers are Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar.
- In the 90:10 division States, the top three performers were Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Mizoram; and, the bottom three performers are Manipur, Assam and Meghalaya.
- Among the 60:40 division States, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are the top three performers and Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Delhi appear as the bottom three performers.
- Among the 90:10 division States, the top three performers are Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland; and, the bottom three performers are Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh
- Among the 60:40 division States, Goa, West Bengal and Delhi appear as the top three performers and Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Bihar appear as the bottom three performers.
- Among the 90:10 division States, Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh and Tripura were the top three performers and Jammu & Kashmir, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh were the bottom three performers
- West Bengal, Bihar and Tamil Nadu were the top three States amongst the 60:40 division States; while Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan appeared as the bottom three performers
- In the case of 90:10 division States, Mizoram, Assam and Tripura were the top three performers and Nagaland, Jammu & Kashmir and Uttarakhand featured as the bottom three
- Among the 60:40 division States, the top three performers are Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa and the bottom three performers are Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Goa
- In the 90:10 division States, the top three performers are Mizoram, Sikkim and Nagaland and the bottom three performers are Manipur and Assam
In a diverse country like India, where each State is socially, culturally, economically, and politically distinct, measuring Governance becomes increasingly tricky. The Public Affairs Index (PAI 2021) is a scientifically rigorous, data-based framework that measures the quality of governance at the Sub-national level and ranks the States and Union Territories (UTs) of India on a Composite Index (CI).
States are classified into two categories – Large and Small – using population as the criteria.
In PAI 2021, PAC defined three significant pillars that embody Governance – Growth, Equity, and Sustainability. Each of the three Pillars is circumscribed by five governance praxis Themes.
The themes include – Voice and Accountability, Government Effectiveness, Rule of Law, Regulatory Quality and Control of Corruption.
At the bottom of the pyramid, 43 component indicators are mapped to 14 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are relevant to the States and UTs.
This forms the foundation of the conceptual framework of PAI 2021. The choice of the 43 indicators that go into the calculation of the CI were dictated by the objective of uncovering the complexity and multidimensional character of development governance
The Equity Principle
The Equity Pillar of the PAI 2021 Index analyses the inclusiveness impact at the Sub-national level in the country; inclusiveness in terms of the welfare of a society that depends primarily on establishing that all people feel that they have a say in the governance and are not excluded from the mainstream policy framework.
This requires all individuals and communities, but particularly the most vulnerable, to have an opportunity to improve or maintain their wellbeing. This chapter of PAI 2021 reflects the performance of States and UTs during the pandemic and questions the governance infrastructure in the country, analysing the effectiveness of schemes and the general livelihood of the people in terms of Equity.
Growth and its Discontents
Growth in its multidimensional form encompasses the essence of access to and the availability and optimal utilisation of resources. By resources, PAI 2021 refer to human resources, infrastructure and the budgetary allocations. Capacity building of an economy cannot take place if all the key players of growth do not drive development. The multiplier effects of better health care, improved educational outcomes, increased capital accumulation and lower unemployment levels contribute magnificently in the growth and development of the States.
The Pursuit Of Sustainability
The Sustainability Pillar analyses the access to and usage of resources that has an impact on environment, economy and humankind. The Pillar subsumes two themes and uses seven indicators to measure the effectiveness of government efforts with regards to Sustainability.
The Curious Case Of The Delta
The Delta Analysis presents the results on the State performance on year-on-year improvement. The rankings are measured as the Delta value over the last five to 10 years of data available for 12 Key Development Indicators (KDI). In PAI 2021, 12 indicators across the three Pillars of Equity (five indicators), Growth (five indicators) and Sustainability (two indicators). These KDIs are the outcome indicators crucial to assess Human Development. The Performance in the Delta Analysis is then compared to the Overall PAI 2021 Index.
Key Findings:-
In the Scheme of Things
The Scheme Analysis adds an additional dimension to ranking of the States on their governance. It attempts to complement the Governance Model by trying to understand the developmental activities undertaken by State Governments in the form of schemes. It also tries to understand whether better performance of States in schemes reflect in better governance.
The Centrally Sponsored schemes that were analysed are National Health Mission (NHM), Umbrella Integrated Child Development Services scheme (ICDS), Mahatma Gandh National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SmSA) and MidDay Meal Scheme (MDMS).
National Health Mission (NHM)
INTEGRATED CHILD DEVELOPMENT SERVICES (ICDS)
MID- DAY MEAL SCHEME (MDMS)
SAMAGRA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN (SMSA)
MAHATMA GANDHI NATIONAL RURAL EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE SCHEME (MGNREGS)