Food Security: an alternative model

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Those who are following the fiasco in Parliament know that the Food Security Bill is proving to be very difficult to be debated, let alone passed. Every political party says that they want the Food Security Bill to be passed. But the BJP wants certain actions to be taken on corrupt ministers; the Congress says an investigation is on and hence nothing can be done at the moment and that the BJP is not allowing the Parliament to function. Other political parties also want their share of demands to be fulfilled. The Left, for example, wants the Food Security Bill to cover the entire population, never mind the cost. In a television debate in the evening of May 7, Amartya Sen said children are going to die if the Bill is not passed as soon as possible and a BJP representative accused him of being biased towards the Congress. There....

West Bengal: 'Presidency spirit' bounces back

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"Debraj, I didn't believe that I would be able to walk this long in this heat" said Uttara Chakrabarty. Senior Citizen. Teacher in the History Department. Former student. Her face was red as a result of walking in the heat from College Street to Esplanade East. A few days back, April 8 and 9 to be exact, I was in New Delhi. I was there to participate in a conference on local governance and democracy in India, Brazil and South Africa. This was part of a build up for the IBSA summit in New Delhi to be held in June. I was fortunate to listen to eminent speakers talking on achievements of democracy in these three countries. What came out of the conference as a clear message was that the world over it was increasingly felt that representative democracy was not good enough, we need a shift towards participatory....

Will the Food Security Act actually help the poor?

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Frankly, I am nervous. I am not sure whether the Food Security Act is yet another overambitious programme of the Government of India or not. The idea, like many other previous 'inclusive growth' ideas, is a noble one but what is likely to be the result? What's wrong with rights? In recent times, over the last decade or so, there has been a series of legislations, giving various kinds of 'rights' to the poor of India. Before the government gave the poor another 'right', would it not be worthwhile to look at what has been the record of these previous 'rights'? The ambitious MGNREGA (originally NREGA) promised 100 days of employment and a right to work as per demand. Last financial year, the average number of days of work provided was 37. What is even worse is that there are very few cases of poor people going to....

Munna and some questions on child labour

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Usually I do not like to bring in my personal experiences while writing. Let me make an exception here and tell you the story of a boy in our neighbourhood and raise some questions which came to my mind recently. We recently moved to Salt Lake, Kolkata. Being upper-middle class Indians, we have the privilege of women working as domestic helps and people coming to take our clothes for ironing. The person who used to come till recently to take our clothes for ironing is a young man from Bihar's Vaishali district. Let's call him Guru. He is perhaps just above 18 but already quite efficient at the business he runs from a small kiosk in our neighbourhood. When he took leave during the Chaat Puja, he was replaced by another friend of his, another young man, about twenty years of age. They are poor but smart enough to....

Re-thinking the foreign aid debate

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The recent debate as to whether the United Kingdom should withdraw aid from India has generated strong emotions in both India and the UK (See end of this paragraph for the link). Indeed the recent economic growth of India and the global recession have generated a debate in first world countries as to whether there is any need for development aid to India. There is already enough wealth in India, the argument goes which can be shared internally and international aid should therefore focus on poor countries such as those in Africa. Several small bilateral donor agencies have left India and several UN bodies have already cut their budget for India. Those who are staying are thinking about cutting down operations and focussing on certain poor states of the country. The link mentioned above: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/18/uk-aid-india The likely impact: There is no doubt that if....

West Bengal: Poverty of the Intelligentsia

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A Rajasthani colleague of mine once told me a joke about West Bengal. West Bengal is the state that has produced world famous economists but the state is economically poor whereas Gujarat has produced very few world famous economists but its economy is doing well. We laughed while having our lunch although I pointed out that Gujarat is not as shining as it is made out to be. Jokes apart, the point has some merit which deserves attention if one wants to understand the problems which prevent West Bengal from achieving the kind of development indicators that it should have. If one looks at West Bengal's history, we shall see that its development story is charged with ideological and intellectual battles. It abolished the Zamindari system, initiated land reforms and Panchayati raj. It threw out the Congress government from power after Emergency. It developed strong arguments for greater....

Is the Right to Education resulting in rural children learning less in schools?

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The Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, is considered a landmark in India's quest to provide every Indian child aged between 6 and 14 years with free education. It is now not just a promise made by the Government of India but also a right for the citizen. The Act has also laid down stringent norms that all schools must adhere to in order to ensure that children get not just education but also quality education [For details of RTE see: http://www.unicef.org/india/education_6144.htm. However the recent Annual Status of Education Report or ASER by a well-known Civil Society Organisation, Pratham, has raised an important question: is RTE, paradoxically, resulting in less learning among the school goers? Firstly, a few words about Pratham's report which is now famous as the "ASER report". It is a national survey done every year since 2005 by Pratham which....

Is the Indian middle class becoming an active agent of change?

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The recent outcry of middle-class men and women, many of whom not associated with any political party or developmental organisation, is an important phenomenon that deserves careful attention. Prior to the Delhi rape case agitation, there was also significant middle-class participation in the anti-corruption movement. Also the popularity of 'Satyamev Jayate' is a pointer towards something new happening in India. Does this mean that the Indian middle-class, the chief beneficiary of the liberalisation process, is dissatisfied with the way things are in the country and are increasingly coming out of their closet and taking active interest in the affairs of the country? Is activism on various issues becoming the norm rather than exception? Or is this just a flash in the pan? In the absence of any serious research on this issue, one can only make some tentative conclusions. One thing is absolutely clear - the role of....

Two cheers for the anti-rape movement

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Following the horrific assault and rape of a 23-year-old girl in Delhi there has been massive protests at Delhi, in other cities of India as well on the social media. Print and electronic media have played a significant role in highlighting the issue, analysng the problems related to law, policing, attitude of political leaders, attitudes of the society towards women, role of Bollywood and television serials. It is one of the rare cases where the mainstream media and the alternative media of the blogosphere have sung the same tune. Middle class Indians who usually do not take part in any social cause have joined candle-light protests in Jantar Mantar; young students have broken through police barricades and faced lathi-charge. The incident has sparked off outrage not only on the incident itself but also as to the way in which women are treated in the country. In articles and posts on....

20 years of the world's most ambitious experiment with democracy

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The 22nd day of December this year marked the 20th anniversary of a particular amendment to the Indian Constitution. In very boring, dry language of the constitutional amendments it is known as the 73rd Amendment. So what? There have many amendments before and there have been many amendments after. What's so special about it? It was very special indeed. It marked the beginning of one the most ambitious experiments with democracy the world has ever seen. Transformation of India's polity So what happened? The amendment gave constitutional sanction to grass-roots level democracy in rural India by making the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) of India the third tier of government after the Centre and the State. Previously in some states Panchayati Raj existed but this amendment made it compulsory for all states to set up the PRIs and hold regular elections. A form of direct democracy called the Gram....