In the last 50 or 60 years, rigid master plans have been the way to plan India’s cities. And what has this resulted in? “The urban dysfunction,” according to Sanjeev Sanyal, Principal Economic Advisor, Government of India.
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“We have a long tradition of urban design, and much of our philosophical dysfunction comes from a complete misunderstanding of that history.”
We have seen six-fold investments in the urban sector towards city planning and development. While we were ahead of the game in terms of planning, where did we lose the plot?
We believe we did the great master plans for cities like Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, and then we did nothing till Chandigarh was built. But this is not true.
In the Arthaśāstra, there is plenty to read about urban design and there are many other treatises on urban design, building design, architecture, and aesthetics.
Jaipur was built on the way of traditional principles, which were developed much later than the Harappan period. In the modern times, several princely states had good cities and some were functioning cities such as Vadodara. But they were not built with these rigid plans.
So Harappan cities were not master planned, but were continuously evolving cities. For example, Dholavira used to have an upper town and a lower town. Eventually, the city expanded out of the regional design. We have seen the city change, adapt and around 2000 BC, it went into decline due to climate change.
However, adaptation attempts were made through creating more water reservoirs and ultimately it was still not tenable and was abandoned.
First, the idea that Harappan [civilisation] had great master planned cities is wrong. Second, we have oddly enough come to think that post-Harappan cities were not properly designed.
Contemporaneous to the Harappan, there was the copper hood civilisation and it was as technologically advanced. It is quite possible that Varanasi was contemporaneous to the Harappan civilisation. Even by conventional reckoning, the city is more than 4,000-years-old. It does not have any of the characteristics that excite us about the Harappan cities. But the Harappan period only lasted for 400 years, whereas Varanasi is still a thriving city.
So what is Varanasi doing [right]? Continuous adaptation. In a pedestrianised environment, the design of Varanasi is perfect. It has got a lot of public space. It is completely mixed-use with temples, next to it housing, around it is the market. It mixes all kinds of social groups. It also has a lot of history, architecture, and everything that 21st century cities invest in.
Also in India, the impression is that the best planned city in the country is Chandigarh and the best planned city in the world is Singapore. But these are completely different models. The model of Singapore is continuous adaptation. Chandigarh on the other hand attempts to look like how it did in 1965.
A complex adaptive system is more effective and efficient than having the master plan approach that Chandigarh attempted to do. Chandigarh, it is the most successful version of its type. Most cities that attempted this model have not succeeded. Hence, rigid master plans do fail.
In current times, what about the prioritisation? A lot of money has been invested in transportation, housing, energy … and these are important. But like Mahatma Gandhi once said, somehow we neglect good sanitation and waste. Why ?
Till as recently as 2000, we used to have this mind-set that the real India lives in its villages. This idea was also propagated by Mahatma Gandhi. Hence, there was some hesitance about investing heavily in urban infrastructure.
India has gone through many cycles of urbanisation and de-urbanisation. Consequently, no evidence suggests that the country lives in its villages. India has sometimes lived in its villages and at times in its cities. Today, we are going through another phase of rapid urbanisation. In the next 10 years, we will be an urban majority country.
Instead, the real game is in managing our cities. And hence, we need to also invest in waste management. Our approach needs to be more dynamic.
Delhi might look cluttered. But when you look at it from a flight, it looks orderly yearned from above. All the sector roads are correctly laid out, buildings are nicely spread. This is because the planners took the top down-view. But the real game is in managing on the ground, and not the top-down view. And as we build our cities as well as the rural areas, one of the major things that we need to manage is waste.
Municipal commissioners have an average tenure of around 10 months, making it impossible for them to have any commitment in any project that they take up. So how is the required ownership in the change going to come forth?
The way the administration is set up in India, this is where we pay the least attention. For instance, the municipal commissioners tend to be the junior most people in the civil service with the least amount of experience. So a 32-year-old person will be put in charge of a city, which he has never visited before, and will be given 10 months to revisit it. This is impossible for a person to do.
The joint secretaries should be the ones running the cities. The elective system needs to somehow correlate to the administrative system. We have a sister of counsellors that are completely delinked. If anything, the only value they add is getting in the way of the municipal commissioner.
We have a bizarre system where the mayors too are not in-charge. We have the worst of all worlds where nobody is in-charge of the city. It may well be a better idea to have an elected official run the place and in charge for five years.
Else, let’s continue to retain a weak counsellor system, and make the municipal commissioner most powerful. But in that case, the municipal commissioner must be a senior official for at least three to five years. Also, the role of the municipal commissioner must be upgraded in the hierarchy of the bureaucracy.
Nine cities have raised municipal bonds and they are moving towards a sustainability model. But unless we are able to fix this part about the accountability and ownership of the CEO, what we would have created in terms of sustainability would get affected.
Most of the world does it routinely. Basically, we need somebody being in-charge of the system. Consequently, being a mayor of a town needs to be an aspirational activity. In India, today somebody would want to be a MLA, but not a mayor. The mayor of New York is better known than the governor.
Also, after the prime minister of the UK, the mayor is the best known politician. So the question is what works. In our political architecture, the DC may be the easier point, so that political overview happens at the chief minister’s level. If that is the model going down, then the chief minister’s representatives━the DCs━have to be powerful characters.
While the Smart Cities Mission has achieved success in certain areas, it has been wanting in certain areas too. How is it progressing?
As for smart cities, the basic idea was to decentralise everything that a city wanted to do. It had nothing to do with digitalisation. To a certain extent, some cities did opt for digital outcomes. Cleaning up a park or painting a heritage building could also be part of a smart city budget.
In the mission, cities came up with their ideas and this was different as compared to the earlier top down approach, which was run through planned projects such as JNNURM. In JNNURM, a lot of money was spent and some things went right.
However, a lot of resources were wasted as there was no local ownership of those ideas. And the smart cities idea was basically to provide some local ownership. While some of those projects have worked and some have not, that should be okay. Not every project will work. The idea here is: It is important to document the successes and the failures.
Institutional knowledge is important. Else, in India, we keep repeating the same mistakes, and do not progress. Documentation will create accountability towards those who took the resources and did whatever they wanted to. Even in those cases, certain ideas do not work.
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On March 31, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its annual Gender Gap Report 2021. The Global Gender Gap report is an annual report released by the WEF. The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes. The gap between men and women across health, education, politics, and economics widened for the first time since records began in 2006.
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The Global gender gap index aims to measure this gap in four key areas : health, education, economics, and politics. It surveys economies to measure gender disparity by collating and analyzing data that fall under four indices : economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The 2021 Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity. The index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men in health, education, economy, and politics.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top two countries (Iceland and Finland) have closed at least 85% of their gap, and the remaining seven countries (Lithuania, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Rwanda, and Ireland) have closed at least 80% of their gap. Geographically, the global top 10 continues to be dominated by Nordic countries, with —Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden—in the top five.
The top 10 is completed by one country from Asia Pacific (New Zealand 4th), two Sub-Saharan countries (Namibia, 6th and Rwanda, 7th, one country from Eastern Europe (the new entrant to the top 10, Lithuania, 8th), and another two Western European countries (Ireland, 9th, and Switzerland, 10th, another country in the top-10 for the first time).There is a relatively equitable distribution of available income, resources, and opportunities for men and women in these countries. The tremendous gender gaps are identified primarily in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Here, we can discuss the overall global gender gap scores across the index’s four main components : Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The indicators of the four main components are
(1) Economic Participation and Opportunity:
o Labour force participation rate,
o wage equality for similar work,
o estimated earned income,
o Legislators, senior officials, and managers,
o Professional and technical workers.
(2) Educational Attainment:
o Literacy rate (%)
o Enrollment in primary education (%)
o Enrollment in secondary education (%)
o Enrollment in tertiary education (%).
(3) Health and Survival:
o Sex ratio at birth (%)
o Healthy life expectancy (years).
(4) Political Empowerment:
o Women in Parliament (%)
o Women in Ministerial positions (%)
o Years with a female head of State (last 50 years)
o The share of tenure years.
The objective is to shed light on which factors are driving the overall average decline in the global gender gap score. The analysis results show that this year’s decline is mainly caused by a reversal in performance on the Political Empowerment gap.
Global Trends and Outcomes:
– Globally, this year, i.e., 2021, the average distance completed to gender parity gap is 68% (This means that the remaining gender gap to close stands at 32%) a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points). These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries. On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
– The gender gap in Political Empowerment remains the largest of the four gaps tracked, with only 22% closed to date, having further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points. Across the 156 countries covered by the index, women represent only 26.1% of some 35,500 Parliament seats and 22.6% of over 3,400 Ministers worldwide. In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of State as of January 15, 2021. At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics.
– The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remains the second-largest of the four key gaps tracked by the index. According to this year’s index results, 58% of this gap has been closed so far. The gap has seen marginal improvement since the 2020 edition of the report, and as a result, we estimate that it will take another 267.6 years to close.
– Gender gaps in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival are nearly closed. In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already attaining gender parity. However, the ‘last mile’ of progress is proceeding slowly. The index estimates that it will take another 14.2 years to close this gap on its current trajectory completely.
In Health and Survival, 96% of this gender gap has been closed, registering a marginal decline since last year (not due to COVID-19), and the time to close this gap remains undefined. For both education and health, while progress is higher than economy and politics in the global data, there are important future implications of disruptions due to the pandemic and continued variations in quality across income, geography, race, and ethnicity.
India-Specific Findings:
India had slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries covered. The pandemic causing a disproportionate impact on women jeopardizes rolling back the little progress made in the last decades-forcing more women to drop off the workforce and leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence.
India’s poor performance on the Global Gender Gap report card hints at a serious wake-up call and learning lessons from the Nordic region for the Government and policy makers.
Within the 156 countries covered, women hold only 26 percent of Parliamentary seats and 22 percent of Ministerial positions. India, in some ways, reflects this widening gap, where the number of Ministers declined from 23.1 percent in 2019 to 9.1 percent in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4 percent. In India, the gender gap has widened to 62.5 %, down from 66.8% the previous year.
It is mainly due to women’s inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, a decrease in women’s labor force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male literacy ratio, and income inequality.
The gap is the widest on the political empowerment dimension, with economic participation and opportunity being next in line. However, the gap on educational attainment and health and survival has been practically bridged.
India is the third-worst performer among South Asian countries, with Pakistan and Afghanistan trailing and Bangladesh being at the top. The report states that the country fared the worst in political empowerment, regressing from 23.9% to 9.1%.
Its ranking on the health and survival dimension is among the five worst performers. The economic participation and opportunity gap saw a decline of 3% compared to 2020, while India’s educational attainment front is in the 114th position.
India has deteriorated to 51st place from 18th place in 2020 on political empowerment. Still, it has slipped to 155th position from 150th position in 2020 on health and survival, 151st place in economic participation and opportunity from 149th place, and 114th place for educational attainment from 112th.
In 2020 reports, among the 153 countries studied, India is the only country where the economic gender gap of 64.6% is larger than the political gender gap of 58.9%. In 2021 report, among the 156 countries, the economic gender gap of India is 67.4%, 3.8% gender gap in education, 6.3% gap in health and survival, and 72.4% gender gap in political empowerment. In health and survival, the gender gap of the sex ratio at birth is above 9.1%, and healthy life expectancy is almost the same.
Discrimination against women has also been reflected in Health and Survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex. The wide sex ratio at birth gaps is due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. Besides, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime.The gender gap in the literacy rate is above 20.1%.
Yet, gender gaps persist in literacy : one-third of women are illiterate (34.2%) than 17.6% of men. In political empowerment, globally, women in Parliament is at 128th position and gender gap of 83.2%, and 90% gap in a Ministerial position. The gap in wages equality for similar work is above 51.8%. On health and survival, four large countries Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and China, fare poorly, with millions of women there not getting the same access to health as men.
The pandemic has only slowed down in its tracks the progress India was making towards achieving gender parity. The country urgently needs to focus on “health and survival,” which points towards a skewed sex ratio because of the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices and women’s economic participation. Women’s labour force participation rate and the share of women in technical roles declined in 2020, reducing the estimated earned income of women, one-fifth of men.
Learning from the Nordic region, noteworthy participation of women in politics, institutions, and public life is the catalyst for transformational change. Women need to be equal participants in the labour force to pioneer the societal changes the world needs in this integral period of transition.
Every effort must be directed towards achieving gender parallelism by facilitating women in leadership and decision-making positions. Social protection programmes should be gender-responsive and account for the differential needs of women and girls. Research and scientific literature also provide unequivocal evidence that countries led by women are dealing with the pandemic more effectively than many others.
Gendered inequality, thereby, is a global concern. India should focus on targeted policies and earmarked public and private investments in care and equalized access. Women are not ready to wait for another century for equality. It’s time India accelerates its efforts and fight for an inclusive, equal, global recovery.
India will not fully develop unless both women and men are equally supported to reach their full potential. There are risks, violations, and vulnerabilities women face just because they are women. Most of these risks are directly linked to women’s economic, political, social, and cultural disadvantages in their daily lives. It becomes acute during crises and disasters.
With the prevalence of gender discrimination, and social norms and practices, women become exposed to the possibility of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, child domestic work, poor education and health, sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence. Many of these manifestations will not change unless women are valued more.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report, which confirmed its 2016 finding of a decline in worldwide progress towards gender parity.
Over 2.8 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. As many as 104 countries still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 countries have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and it is astonishing that a handful of countries still allow husbands to legally stop their wives from working.
Globally, women’s participation in the labour force is estimated at 63% (as against 94% of men who participate), but India’s is at a dismal 25% or so currently. Most women are in informal and vulnerable employment—domestic help, agriculture, etc—and are always paid less than men.
Recent reports from Assam suggest that women workers in plantations are paid much less than men and never promoted to supervisory roles. The gender wage gap is about 24% globally, and women have lost far more jobs than men during lockdowns.
The problem of gender disparity is compounded by hurdles put up by governments, society and businesses: unequal access to social security schemes, banking services, education, digital services and so on, even as a glass ceiling has kept leadership roles out of women’s reach.
Yes, many governments and businesses had been working on parity before the pandemic struck. But the global gender gap, defined by differences reflected in the social, political, intellectual, cultural and economic attainments or attitudes of men and women, will not narrow in the near future without all major stakeholders working together on a clear agenda—that of economic growth by inclusion.
The WEF report estimates 135 years to close the gap at our current rate of progress based on four pillars: educational attainment, health, economic participation and political empowerment.
India has slipped from rank 112 to 140 in a single year, confirming how hard women were hit by the pandemic. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two Asian countries that fared worse.
Here are a few things we must do:
One, frame policies for equal-opportunity employment. Use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate biases of gender, caste, etc, and select candidates at all levels on merit. Numerous surveys indicate that women in general have a better chance of landing jobs if their gender is not known to recruiters.
Two, foster a culture of gender sensitivity. Take a review of current policies and move from gender-neutral to gender-sensitive. Encourage and insist on diversity and inclusion at all levels, and promote more women internally to leadership roles. Demolish silos to let women grab potential opportunities in hitherto male-dominant roles. Work-from-home has taught us how efficiently women can manage flex-timings and productivity.
Three, deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the education and skilling of women and girls at the bottom of the pyramid. CSR allocations to toilet building, the PM-Cares fund and firms’ own trusts could be re-channelled for this.
Four, get more women into research and development (R&D) roles. A study of over 4,000 companies found that more women in R&D jobs resulted in radical innovation. It appears women score far higher than men in championing change. If you seek growth from affordable products and services for low-income groups, women often have the best ideas.
Five, break barriers to allow progress. Cultural and structural issues must be fixed. Unconscious biases and discrimination are rampant even in highly-esteemed organizations. Establish fair and transparent human resource policies.
Six, get involved in local communities to engage them. As Michael Porter said, it is not possible for businesses to sustain long-term shareholder value without ensuring the welfare of the communities they exist in. It is in the best interest of enterprises to engage with local communities to understand and work towards lowering cultural and other barriers in society. It will also help connect with potential customers, employees and special interest groups driving the gender-equity agenda and achieve better diversity.