This is one of a kind and a must read for every one.
Culture is not always about doling out grants, holding mega-festivals, or just about sob stories around lack of preservation. If the economics of culture is understood, it can bring in prosperity and boost soft power. But, how exactly should India go about it?
Most nations, including Malaysia, Thailand, African countries and so on have a national cultural policy that sets a roadmap for the management of the country’s creative economy.
For the longest time it has been argued that India woefully lacked a national culture policy. Ironically, the formulation of such a policy has been opposed by several committees set up by the Ministry of Culture itself for the express intention of designing such a policy.
In June 2008, after several meetings held at taxpayers’ expense, yet another such committee of luminaries declared to the media that Indians were a disparate community, that there was hardly anything common between a Kashmiri and a Malayali or a Gujarati and a Mizo in terms of their culture and hence there was no need for a homogenised policy that served them all. The usual apprehensions of a unified or majoritarian imposition of cultural standards were expressed and the committee had a quiet, unsung burial.
For any meaningful discussion on cultural policy or cultural activity in a country as vast and diverse as India, it is no doubt essential to keep in mind the complex, multi-layered and multi-dimensional cultural fabric of this country, which despite its diversities is united by that single intangible thread of Indianness, which defies definitions and boundaries.
A culture policy for a diverse nation like India (or for that matter any country) is in no way an attempt to homogenise the country’s culture – an act, which is anyway impossible through mere legislations or executive decisions. After all, the more than 5,000-year-old civilisational history and culture of India has borne numerous challenges to be shaken by such a policy document. A policy of this kind is not even an attempt to define what the culture of India needs to be. A national culture policy needs to look broadly at effective ways of managing, promoting, preserving and showcasing this rich and vibrant culture and handle the economics of the culture ‘industry’ through a variety of innovative initiatives, new participation, governmental incentives, funding and public private partnership (PPP) models.
The culture policy can be seen as an area of intersection between activities and initiatives of various ministries of the government of India, such as Ministry of External Affairs, Human Resource and Development, Tourism, Commerce and Industry, Textiles, Small-scale and Agro Industries etc, and not necessarily just the Ministry of Culture (MoC).
1. Complete overhaul, rationalisation and effective management of existing cultural bodies coming under the government of India.
One of the biggest challenges facing the governmental intervention in the domain of culture is the lack of skilled administrators for the 45 odd organisations that fall under the MoC ranging from Sangeet Natak Akademi, Lalit Kala Akademi, Sahitya Akademi, National Gallery of Modern Art, National Museum, National School of Drama, the seven Zonal Cultural Centres, CCRT, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) and so on.
While performing artists are masters in their disciplines, they need not always be skilled and unbiased administrators who understand the fine nuances of management. Bureaucrats many a times consider a Culture Ministry posting as a punishment one as they are not exposed to or are not sensitive to the arts. Unlike most countries of the world, India lacks a discipline of “arts management” or “arts administration” that helps produce young, administrative talent specifically for managing our arts institutions, museums, monuments, libraries, art galleries and centres for performing arts.
In addition to mediocrity and inefficiency, most of the bodies under MoC have a huge duplicity of their functions. Everyone seems to be intent on rediscovering the same wheel, and that too over and over again.
This is not something that the ministry is unaware of.
In 1964, the Bhabha Committee was set up to analyse the ills facing the ministry and its report was submitted in October 1964. Result: NO ACTION.
The Khosla Committee set up for the same task in 1970, submitted its report in 1972. Result: NO ACTION.
The Haksar Committee set up in 1988, submitted a report in 1990. Result: NO ACTION.
High Powered Committee (HPC) set up in January 2014 under the chairmanship of Abhijeet Sengupta and submitted to the parliament with more than 220 pointed action items and recommendations. Lo! And Behold – yet again, NO ACTION! The HPC rightly points out:
“First, if the Government wishes to experiment with change in administrative systems, a small Ministry like Culture could be a starting point. Second, many of the changes we propose are not entirely new, they revisit the conditions that existed fifty years ago; it is since then that rigidity has set in. And, third, this Ministry is one whose very mandate should require it to interact with the young, with creative, independent minds: it has to be a catalyst for new beginnings.”
Most of our culture bodies on which huge sums of money are spent are leaderless. The institutions work in silos and do not talk to one another. Issues of autonomy and transparency dog most of them. Creation of new jobs and skills with specialisation must be a prerequisite for management of cultural organisations and not mere ad-hoc postings. The ministry must ensure that there is a proper roadmap and periodic performance audits of these bodies, to see if they are achieving the objectives for which they were set up in the first place.
Regional centres are set up as further money-guzzling mechanisms, with no sense of mission, objectives, or Agenda.
A case in point is the IGNCA, which has been perennially in controversies for long. With a sprawling head office in the heart of Lutyens’ Delhi and regional centres in Bengaluru, Varanasi and Guwahati struggling to make any headway, IGNCA has decided now to start many more regional centres in Ranchi, Srinagar, Goa, Vadodara, Puducherry and Kerala. Land would be acquired, buildings constructed, a battery of staff appointed, with no agenda on what is to be done. The maintenance of these inefficient white elephants gets paid by tax-payers.
2. Enhancement of funding for India’s cultural industry through new participation models, including PPP.
China spends roughly 18 per cent of its budget on culture, education and science. The UK saw the support of an additional £8.9 million for culture in 2015, 25 per cent tax relief on orchestras and other creative activities, support to roll out WiFi in all state libraries and museums and so on.
Most European countries spend about 1-1.5 per cent of their public expenditure on culture and the quantum of private expenditure in culture too is substantial in the relatively affluent countries. From 0.12 per cent spend in 2009-10 to 0.13 per cent in 2014-15 of the government of India’s budget it certainly paints a sad picture of the priority that is given to a country with such an ancient heritage and culture.
The UK has the concept of the ‘arts council’, which acts as the nodal agency for all matters related to funding the arts. The funding here comes as a mix of two sources – direct government funding and a large component through private investments in culture called the National Lottery. This funds a wide range of activities – from theatre to digital art, reading to dance, music to literature, crafts to collections; and helps them achieve their mission statement of “great art and culture for everyone”. Close to £1 billion of public money was invested in 664 arts organisations from 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2018. Of this £69.5 million per year comes from the National Lottery invested in touring and working with children and young people.
The budgetary pie for culture in India too needs to expand, and for this the government exchequer need not be the only source. Augmenting the funding for culture by combining government intervention with private initiatives, corporate grants and even foreign investment especially in tourism related projects is a way out. The National Culture Fund (NCF) of the MoC has been largely a non-starter. More tax exemptions and reliefs for donations to the culture industry and bringing it within the ambit of mandatory corporate social responsibility (CSR) can drive more corporates and individuals to adopt culture projects. Important projects could be adopted by high net worth individuals and even go by their name if that is an incentive that someone is looking for.
3. Inclusion of the cultural element among young minds by broad-basing the education system to inculcate a sense of national identity, pride and self-worth.
Swami Vivekananda points out that the defect of present-day education is that it has no definite goal to pursue. A sculptor has a clear idea about what she wants to shape out of the marble rock; similarly a painter knows what she wants to paint. But a teacher has no goal in what she wishes to make of the children. The end of all education, Swamiji opined, was ‘man-making’, manifesting in our lives as perfection, which is the very nature of our inner self.
Studies have shown that there are various levels at which cultural education can be part of the syllabus right from kindergarten. The first level is knowledge-based which teaches our children the best of what has been created and is being currently created in the performing and visual arts and literature. The second level helps develop children’s critical faculties through the introduction of courses such as music, dance, drama, painting etc. and the positive impact that it has on the child’s cognitive development, IQ, and personality is scientifically documented. The third level is skill-based where the child learns how to participate and create new culture for themselves. Not everyone reaches here and a child exposed to say Indian classical music, need not necessarily become a performing musician. But the positive spin-offs of such exposure at a very early age are unimaginable. It would also create millions of jobs for so many artists, who are all not lucky to make a living out of their art, and can now be teachers in schools at various levels.
The arts fuel children’s curiosity and critical capacity. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) ideals state them as every child’s birthright. It is vital that children engage with the arts early in their lives. The arts contribute to the development and wellbeing of children and young people. They inspire future audiences and the next generation of artists and leaders.
At the level of higher education, it is a real pity that we in India lack institutions on Indology/Indic Studies or civilisational and heritage studies. We have outsourced most of this to Western scholars and cry hoarse each time they come up with a biased and warped viewpoint of our country, its culture and faiths.
But is there a strong counter-narrative based on honest scholarship bereft of shallow jingoism or ideological biases? The answer is sadly, No!
The predominant agenda in education has made us feel perpetually inferior and ashamed of everything that is Indian. But then how long will we continue to quote Macaulay for creating the brown Englishmen or blame the Marxist intellectuals and wallow in self-pity, when the country has no agenda in mind to course-correct?
4. Looking at culture as a profit centre that provides jobs to people, enables skill development and vocational training and finds effective markets for the wares of artisans, weavers, artists, painters and craftsmen of the country in traditional and contemporary arts and crafts in both national and international platforms.
For long the Culture Ministry is seen as primarily a cost centre, which is also a grants body for various schemes and to which greedy artists flock to curry favours or lobby for awards. Sadly, the “soft power” of India’s culture and the manner in which this can be utilised for job creation, skill development and enhancing tourism in the country, which can transform it into a profit centre, has never been looked at.
Today with dwindling job opportunities many traditional artisan families are leaving their art to take up sundry factory jobs or enter low level tasks in the IT field and so on. The policy of the government must aim at providing economic stability to the craftsmen which would also give them a sense of pride in what they are doing for generations and also ensure enough returns so that they don’t abandon their hereditary task.
As part of the government’s Skill India Programme, a national institute for skill development in the traditional arts, crafts, textiles, handicrafts etc. should be set up or added to the NSDC. A curriculum and framework for certification must be created by the Institution in consultation with NSDC, NIOS, institutions of higher education and other stakeholders including private training providers. A sector skill council on traditional skills can be created by NSDC too to further give credibility to the certification. Indian arts, crafts, and textiles should find its way in every global market after being duly patented.
5. Clear roadmap to integrate culture to tourism initiatives and boost the country’s rich but latent, tourism potential.
As highlighted in the UN WTO 2013 report, tourism can account for 9 per cent of GDP (direct, indirect and induced), one in 11 jobs and 6 per cent of world exports.
Our heritage monuments, temples, palaces, mosques and forts count for among the best in the world and we have numerous world heritage monuments attested by UNESCO. But the infrastructure and upkeep around the monuments is abysmal. The Cultural Policy should dovetail with the tourism plan of the government in ensuring good infrastructure around monuments – clean, approachable and motorable roads, airport facilities, telephone lines that work, clean toilets and restaurants serving hygienic food.
This industry in itself can help employ millions of people in the area. The most exquisite monument cannot compensate for the ugliness of public defecation, garbage mounds and rivers of sewage – common in every Indian tourist spot.
Beggars found around the monuments and temples can be gainfully employed around the monument. Digital multi-media presentations/sound-light shows, multi-lingual audio guides, qualified tourist guides, sufficient information and pamphlets at the sites would draw innumerable tourists. Heritage walks enhance the whole tourism experience and can be conducted with private partnership. In all these important sites opportunities for historical and cultural immersion in the local culture – local dance and music forms, arts and crafts, cuisine etc. and a market for local artisans to sell their products to tourists can thus be made.
On the lines of the English Heritage, the government of India must seriously consider a national heritage trust. Gone are the days when people looked at history books for learning about their past and heritage. They, and increasingly tourists, are looking at experiences that bring history to life in an engaging way standing on the very spot where history happened. The trust needs to offer a hands-on experience that will be educational for children, national and international tourists who come to the country.
India must make a push for more of her monuments for UNESCO Listing. There is an economic case too for this.
In Luang Prabang, a World Heritage Site in Lao, the number of direct jobs increased from by about 10.3 per cent between 2000 and 2005 and the number of commercial establishments doubled, after it was UNESCO listed. As a result, direct employment in the tourism sector there has grown at a compounded annual rate of 8.5 per cent.
Ankor Wat in Cambodia was listed as World Heritage in 1992 and since then tourists arrivals have grown at an impressive 21 per cent (CAGR) annually. In 1993, the tourist arrivals in Ankor Wat were about 1.2 lakh and in 2010 the recorded figures were over 25 lakh. Tourism receipts there too grew from $100 million in 1995 to $1,786 million in 2010.
6. Institutions for dissemination of cultural knowledge to the public at large through various media; Online being the biggest backbone for a “Digital India”.
A lot of the country’s tangible and intangible heritage needs to be preserved for posterity and also documented. We have lacked a sense of documentation and showcasing of our own very rich past.
Creation of institutions such as a national cultural audio-visual archive that can also be accessed online by everyone, and modernisation of our existing archives (National Archives of India, National Film Archives and State Archives etc.) and libraries, through technology and digitisation would create lasting legacy institutions for our country.
Museums are also one of the most significant revenue earners for developed nations, through tourist footfalls. The five most popular museums and galleries in both London and Paris receive more than 20 million visits between them while Shanghai’s and Istanbul’s ‘top five’ attract more than six million. ‘Newer’ cities too are keen to develop their museums and galleries. Singapore alone has more than 50 museums, and 40 per cent of its residents visit a museum or gallery each year. About 100 museums open annually in China, peaking at nearly 400 in 2011 alone.
Is it not a national shame that just one museum in Paris (the Louvre) gets more than 1.5 times the number of visitors that all of India gets in terms of foreign visitors according to a past statistic of the Indian Tourism Department (9.72 million versus 6.29 million)?
Just in terms of international scale and standards, if we see the three cities with the highest number of national museums: Shanghai (27); Paris (24); Berlin (18) or with three cities with highest number of other museums: London (162); Berlin (140); New York (126) and even with cities with very little history, it becomes amply clear that we in India fall woefully short.
It is sad that in independent India there have been very few new museums that have been developed. Government museums make up for 90 per cent of the roughly 1,000 museums in India. In 2011, UNESCO published a scathing report on the appalling condition of India’s top eight museums, citing sub-standard maintenance, lighting and signage among other issues.
But at the core are deep-rooted issues of archaic policies, lack of autonomy and skilled manpower and under-staffing. They are banned from all kinds of partnerships with private individuals or organisations and have to depend only on central funding for day-to-day operations. Professional salaries are not given to trained museum staff and hence modern curatorial, display and conservation methods are not followed in many cases.
While it might not be entirely feasible to develop museums in every city and town of India, major centres in the country could have the ‘museum district’ (like in London) or the ‘museum mile’ (in New York) set up with public private partnership to become a showcase of the culture and arts of the entire state and also for different facets of a state/city (For example – science, IT, sound, defence, cricket, etc. which have developed indigenously in Bengaluru).
In addition to national museums, regional and community museums need to be encouraged and provided for to showcase regional culture and heritage. For instance, a botanical museum for the Western Ghats would be a unique asset. Going to museums must be a joyful and a deeply enriching and educational experience both for tourists and for Indians. Can we mention even one such museum in India today?
In line with the Government’s Digital India Project, the online medium should be used to the maximum extent to conserve, create and disseminate cultural artifacts of India.
7. Showcase and educate the international community about the best of India’s culture, heritage, traditional knowledge, performing and visual arts.
In most international forums, India and her culture are not showcased to the extent that it can be to depict its richness in all its glory. Through the network of embassies of India and consulates, regular dissemination of cultural artifacts of India, the best of the performing and visual arts, films and documentaries, books and literature should be periodically organised.
The soft power of Indian culture can and must be used to create jobs, not necessarily always in India, but for Indians across the world. The demand for Indian cuisine across the world itself is a market that is dying to be explored. Instead, what we find is that in most countries, so-called Indian restaurants are run by other nationals.
International co‐operation should be sought for setting up India studies chairs in major universities abroad where Indian scholars are invited to research and teach about India, her history and culture rather than leave it to Western scholars to create a warped view of Indian history and religions. Cultural cooperation agreements with various countries to get the best of what is happening world-wide to administer and disseminate culture is the need of the hour.
Like the recent inclusion of World Yoga Day, more art forms – classical music, dance, classical languages and traditional knowledge etc. should receive international recognition considering they are thousands of years old. An element of Indian performing arts and literature must be a given in all the major festivals across the world. We, and our culture, need to be seen, understood and appreciated.
An important aspect of international cultural co‐operation is a sizeable programme of scholarships/fellowships in different disciplines given to foreign scholars and artists to come to India and to Indian scholars to visit foreign countries. Most of these scholarship programmes need to be on a reciprocal basis. Cross-cultural projects and interdisciplinary studies can herald new ideas and avenues in the field of culture and can act as a soft tool for international cooperation and diplomacy.
Rabindranath Tagore had said: “Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it.” The time has come now to build this capacity in the culture industry of India and make it a robust and streamlined one that not only provides jobs and revenue to millions, but creates a sense of national identity, self-esteem, pride and lasting legacy for posterity.
While it is essential that we become an economic and military super-power, we would be a highly impoverished nation if, after a generation, our cultural heritage and identity is lost. As mentioned earlier, culture is not always about doling out grants, holding mega-festivals, or just about sob stories around lack of preservation. The economics of culture and the way it can enhance skills, augment jobs, and add to the country’s might by being both a profitable industry and also as soft-power diplomacy needs innovative and out of the box thinking.
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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.
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.