The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Educated, in name only
Fifth graders that can barely read

The spectacle of boys and girls in the age group of six to 14 growing up without entering a school is bad enough. Even worse is the plight of those who do go to school but are hardly educated. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) recently put out by Pratham shows that almost half of Class V children in rural India can only read Class II text. That means that their reading capability is three grades behind in learning levels. Not only that, the all-India percentage for all Class V rural students who can read Class II text has declined from 56.2 per cent in 2008 to 52.8 per cent in 2009. Those in the same grade in government schools who can do divisions has plummeted from 41 per cent in 2007 to 36.1 per cent now. Almost 64 per cent Class V government school students in India cannot do divisions; only 56.3 per cent can do subtractions.

These shocking figures underline two facts. One, primary education is in disarray in the country. Two, the state of affairs in rural areas is pathetic. Every now and then, the media has to highlight the plight of some schools where there are either no teachers or very few. Then there are also cases of schools where the appointed teachers sub-let their jobs to someone else, giving a fraction of the salary they take from the government to the surrogate teachers. All that proves that some schools only impart degrees, not education.

When the foundation is so weak, children are bound to face all sorts of difficulties when they go in for higher education. Whether it is the civil services or the IITs, majority of seats are grabbed by students coming from metropolitan areas, for the simple reason that their country cousins start with a huge handicap. The sufferer is the country as a whole. If Russia could compete creditably with the US in the space race despite limited financial means, it was only because the educational grounding of its children was better. India is frittering away any such advantage.

Rights of the disabled
New law on registration can help

In a country where apathy towards the physically challenged is more a norm than an exception, any new rule enabling the differently abled is heartening. The Centre’s announcement of amendments to the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Rules that is likely to expedite the issue of disability certificate is a welcome step. As things stand, procuring a disability certificate is no mean task. Under the new rules, the differently abled will have to appear before one doctor and not the Medical Board as stipulated now. Better still the doctor at the primary health centre will be able to issue the certificate in cases of severe disability.

A significant percentage of Indian population, nearly 2.13 per cent, suffers from one or another disability. Laws have been passed from time to time to enable the disabled to lead a life of dignity. While the National Policy for Persons with Disabilities is in place, more recently the Union Cabinet even widened the definition of disabled children in the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act. However, the ground realities leave much to be desired. Often concern has been expressed at the poor implementation of laws meant for the benefit of the disabled who have every right to life with dignity.

States, which are supposed to issue the disability certificate, have to understand that the registration of the differently abled is the first step. The government and society have to recognise as well as be sensitive to the special needs of the disabled. Both disabled-friendly laws and societal attitudes can ensure that the disabled function as productive members of society.

Thought for the Day

Purple haze is in my brain/Lately things don’t seem the same. — Jimi Hendrix

ARTICLE

Appreciable economic growth
Can India be the world’s next industrial hub?
by Jayshree Sengupta

A Chinese scholar recently asked me how long it would take for India to reach China’s level of manufacturing. Indeed, India leapfrogged a revolution in manufacturing to become a service industry leader in the world with its rapid progress in ITC (information technology and communications). India’s service sector contributes 53 per cent to the GDP while Chinese service sector’s share is 40 per cent.

India’s manufacturing industry has, however, lagged behind and contributes only 16 per cent to the GDP while China’s manufacturing contributes 33 per cent. China is a world leader in manufacturing, which is not surprising considering that until the nineteenth century it had been a leading manufacturing nation for over a millennium. Since India’s manufacturing sector has not flourished as compared to China’s, it has not been able to absorb the growing number of people migrating from villages to towns in search of jobs.

The growth of IT in India has brought Indian technical personnel into the global arena, but entry into this sector has been restricted as it requires knowledge of English and secondary education. Only the manufacturing sector can absorb the bulk of migrants.

Recently India’s industrial growth rose to 11.7 per cent, signifying a resurgence and revival of manufacturing because this sector has the biggest weight in the index of industrial production.

Manufacturing growth suffered a lot after the global financial crisis and recession in 2008 and 2009, as it hit the exports. But China has come out of the recession more quickly than India and though it has faced a severe problem of exports decline and a consequent increase in unemployment, the sustained growth in manufacturing has created fresh demand for migrant labour. In fact, there has been a shortage of migrant labour in China recently. The jobless have also found employment in infrastructure projects because in its huge fiscal package comprising 14 per cent of the GDP, the Chinese government went for the construction of capital-intensive projects, which proved to be very labour intensive.

Recently, China’s GDP registered a high growth rate of 10.7 per cent. It has been aided by high manufacturing growth, which was at its highest in five years in December 2009. Manufacturing activity has been aided by high labour productivity, government subsidies to buy appliances like refrigerators, huge investments in infrastructure and the availability of disciplined and skilled labour force. The supervision of manufacturing activities at the shop floor level is also meticulous and the Chinese are able to produce almost zero-defect products valued by quality brand name importers like Ralph Lauren.

The value addition in Chinese manufacturing in 2000-2007 was $751 billion whereas it was only $34 billion in India. Obviously, the Chinese work on low-cost raw materials and through their expertise in manufacturing transform them into high-value products. No wonder, the Chinese demand for raw materials has helped to push up commodity prices the world over.

India’s manufacturing industry suffers not only from the problems of inadequate infrastructure but also owing to the bureaucracy’s style of functioning and red tape. For example, the subsidies that the government gives to exporters take a long time to reach them. On the infrastructure side, the main lacuna is power. India will be short of 50,000 MW of power in the next two years. Captive power plants are keeping the private sector factory units going but they are expensive to run. Shortage of water also is increasingly surfacing as a major problem for industry. The main problem in the future will be how to increase the supply of clean energy to industry as India has committed itself to reducing green house gas emissions by 20 to 25 per cent by 2020.

Despite so many problems, India is striding ahead in manufacturing as can be seen in the case of automobiles --- earlier it had specialised only in auto parts. India has age-old skills and traditions in gem cutting, jewellery and textiles. Yet China is able to capture the mass market because it can deliver huge orders on time.

The factory sector in India contributes 65 per cent to the industrial output and the rest comes from the small and medium enterprises (SMEs). They are not capable of handling huge orders and they are usually cash-strapped and lack the latest technical knowhow and have poor access to markets. Only 15 per cent of the factories use high-tech and have a low expenditure on R&D as compared to China. The textile mills in China are highly computerised and production is uniform, defect-free and cheaper.

The privately owned SMEs have grown faster than state-owned industrial units in China throughout the economic downturn because they had the advantage of more flexibility in response to the crisis. They were also able to get finance through the banking system due to new policy initiatives. The stimulus package of 4 trillion yuan on the whole has sustained manufacturing growth. The pace of manufacturing growth, however, would ultimately depend on strong income growth and consumption growth, which depends on the recovery of the world economy.

Around 50 per cent of the SMEs in India have been adversely affected by the global recession. Apart from power and infrastructure, the availability of easy credit is a major constraint. Land acquisition for setting up clusters of small and medium enterprises and SEZs has been a problem in India as compared to China. In an authoritarian regime, it is easier to acquire land for industrial use than in India where problems of resettlement and rehabilitation of displaced persons take time.

The availability of foreign exchange, knowhow and technology through foreign direct investment is also important in making China the industrial hub of the world. As compared to India, China has been receiving more than four times foreign capital than India. (Between 2000 and 2007, India received $17.1 billion as compared to $78.1 billion by China). Only recently, India started receiving more FDI than before but the global crisis has led to a slowdown.

Yet India does have the potential of becoming a manufacturing hub of South Asia (if not the world) and more and more MNCs are coming to set bases in India for export to third countries.

India has a skilled labour force and a large pool of scientists and engineers (it possesses the second largest pool of such professionals in the world). But in the case of business climate, it is far behind China, especially in investor-friendly policies. Naturally, businesses coming from industrial countries find it easier to open their branches in China than in India.

A recent survey has ranked India 124th in terms of “economic freedom”, which includes freedom from corruption, business freedom and monetary freedom. Obviously, there is a lot of catching up to do.

MIDDLE

A life well lived
by Harish Dhillon

If I were to make a representation on canvas of my dull, humdrum, life, it would be in shades only of grey and brown. So I am fascinated by people who break out of the mould of ordinariness and bring colour to their lives, people who live life on their own terms.

My earliest memory of such a person is of my aunt Jaswant. She was beautiful and there was an aura of dignity that made every head turn in her direction. Unfortunately she was not able to keep her husband’s head turned for very long. Six years into their marriage he took up with a pretty young girl from a village near Palampur, an affair that was facilitated by the long absences from home that his job necessitated.

She discovered the affair but was not able to break it up. She decided that two could play at the game and took up with one of her numerous admirers. Unfortunately, on one occasion, their itineraries overlapped and they found themselves coming down to breakfast in the same rest house. The husband forgot that his own position was untenable too and slapped aunty Jaswant. She walked out of the marriage: commonplace today but extremely rare and courageous 60 years ago.

She had a hard time of it but she refused to seek financial help from her husband. She drifted from job to job, sometimes as a receptionist, sometimes as a housekeeper, both shadowy professions at the time. But she did not lose any of her dignity or any of her sense of humour. She never gave any indication of the hardships she was going through and went blithely on her way as if she owned the world.

Then her husband, who now lived permanently with his girlfriend and had a daughter by her, came down with cancer. Aunty Jaswant went to see him. It was a brief visit but afterwards she took the other woman aside and threatened her with the direst consequences if she showed any negligence in looking after her husband.

Aunty Jaswant now tightened her belt even further and sent a reasonable sum of money every month for the better care of her husband. Long years later when her husband was dead and gone and the daughter was to be married, she not only attended the wedding but also took a generous gift.

Then, by a beautiful coincidence, she met her former boyfriend again and since they were both now unattached they became man and wife.

When I last met her, I asked: “Aunty, are you happy?”

She mulled over my question and then her beautiful, still unlined face broke into a radiant smile and she replied in her usual pragmatic way: “Happy? I’ve always been happy. But yes, it is a relief not to have to switch off every light behind me to save on the electricity bill and not to have to wait endlessly at bus stands because I cannot afford the taxi fare.”

OPED

Seeds of discontent
Jatropha has failed to deliver
by Cahal Milmo

A “miracle” plant, once thought to be as the answer to producing renewable biofuels on a vast scale, is driving thousands of farmers in the developing Five years ago jatropha was hailed by investors and scientists as a breakthrough in the battle to find a biofuel alternative to fossil fuels that would not further impoverish developing countries by diverting resources away from food production.

Jatropha was said to be resistant to drought and pests and able could grow on land that was unsuitable for food production. But researchers have found that it has increased poverty in countries including India and Tanzania.

Millions of the plants have been grown in anticipation of rich returns, only for growers to be hit by poor yields, conflict over land and a lack of infrastructure to process the oil-rich seeds.

Oil giant BP, which planned to spend almost (pounds sterling)32m on a joint venture to set up jatropha plantations, has now pulled out and the charity ActionAid today warns that jatropha needs to be cultivated on prime food-growing land to produce significant yields.

According to one estimate, up to one million hectares of jatropha n an area equivalent to Devon and Cornwall combined n are being cultivated around the globe, despite little evidence that it can produce enough oil to make the crop commercially sustainable.

Meredith Alexander, head of trade at Actionaid and co-author of its “Meals per Gallon” report, said: “Jatropha is a real gold-rush crop, and the same amount of common sense that applies in a gold rush has been applied to the jatropha rush.

“Jatropha was the subject of an explosion of fabulous propaganda. But this was an untried crop at commercial levels and the many thousands of marginal farmers who have gone into production have been experimented on with disastrous results. They are simply not getting the income they were promised and now cannot afford food for their families,” she said.

A native of central America, Jatropha curcus was brought to Europe in the 16th century and subsequently spread across Africa and Asia. Until recently, its few uses included a malaria treatment and an indigestion remedy.

But despite jatropha’s much-lauded ability to grow where food crops cannot flourish, campaigners say there is evidence that commercially viable yields can only be obtained in fertile soil.

In India, forecasted annual yields of three to five tonnes of seeds per hectare have been scaled back to 1.8 to two tonnes. The Overseas Development Institute, a leading international development think-tank, has stated that “as the mainstay of people’s livelihoods, jatropha looks distinctly marginal”.

ActionAid said its researchers found repeated cases of farmers being left with jatropha crops they could not sell and land previously used to grow food crops being taken over by sub-contractors who then employed locals on wages that could not compete with rises in the price of foodstuffs partially caused by biofuel production.

Raju Sona, a farmer in north-east India who gave up land that usually produces vegetables to grow jatropha, said: “No one will buy jatropha.

People said if you have a plantation then surely you have a good market.

But we didn’t see such a market. I threw the seeds away.” A number of British companies are continuing to market jatropha as a “highly ethical and green” investment. One fund offers investors three packages for prices ranging from £ 7,500 to £ 15,600 in a brochure entitled “Money really does grow on trees”. That company says it has funded the planting of 32 million jatropha shrubs worldwide through a London-based provider called Carbon Credited Farming (CCF) Plc.

Jeff Reeves, head of global operations for CCF, which estimates it will have 300 million jatropha shrubs planted on 120,000 acres worldwide by the end of 2010, admitted that there had been problems establishing the crop.

He told The Ecologist magazine: “In many cases it is government policy and people that are to blame, rather than jatropha itself. Well-managed, jatropha ... can work. But there have been countries where poor management has meant this is not the case.” D1 Oils, a London-based biofuels company which has invested heavily in jatropha, said insisted it was too early to write off the crop as a long-term biofuel source. But its former co-investor, BP, disagreed.

A spokesman said: “As other (renewable fuel) technologies came up, we looked again at whether jatropha was going to be the best biofuel source that could be scaled up. There were problems with it. We have decided to look elsewhere.n

— By arrangement with The Independent

Pakistan needs stability
by Lt Gen Kamal Davar

India’s unanticipated offer of Secretary-level talks to Pakistan has surprised our terror-exporting western neighbour as much as Indo-Pak watchers in our country. However, not unexpectedly, Pakistan’s senior hierarchy, including Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani and their Foreign Minister, instead of appreciating the Indian statesman-like initiative (whether attributable to a nudge from Washington or not being immaterial), have gone all out in launching a verbal offensive primarily to score some brownie points over India, perhaps for their constituency at home, thus vitiating, to some extent, the atmosphere for mending relations between the two neighbours even prior to the commencement of the talks.

Pakistan’s sudden ascendancy on a high horse is largely attributable to, the once again – perhaps for the nth time – continual US largesse in the form of generous financial and military aid in the pipeline for services supposedly being rendered by them in the war on terror in this region!

The recently concluded London summit on Afghanistan has advocated that the current Hamid Karzai-led Kabul government must change tack and cultivate the ‘good Taliban’ to buy peace and stability in that hapless and strife-torn land.

This change in the West’s strategy, though bordering on the timid and fraught with danger, is music to Pakistan’s ears for now they can continue nurturing, as hithertofore, their erstwhile strategic assets in Afghanistan, namely the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani terror network and some of the anti-Karzai Pashtun warlords with impunity all under the garb of getting the ‘good Taliban’ to sup together.

Pakistan’s persistent obsession with its ‘strategic depth’ hypothesis also propels them to the view that with the support of the ‘good Taliban’ they will have a government in Kabul of their choice, once the US-led NATO forces and the International Security Assistance Force exit Afghanistan in the next 18 months or so, as announced in 2009, by US President Barack Obama.

Most observers opine that this time-table will be impossible to implement as the Afghan situation may take many years to stabilise and thus Pakistan’s anxiety for the western forces to quit the Af-Pak region at the earliest may turn out to be to Pak’s discomfiture.

Notwithstanding Pakistan’s assurances to the international community, especially its mentor, the US and off course to India, primarily after the ISI inspired 26/11 Mumbai blasts to not permitting their territory being used to foment terror against India or the Karzai government in Kabul and the US and other international forces in Afghanistan, their duplicity and insincerity is apparent to all.

Under tremendous pressure from the US, there is no doubt that the Pakistani Army did mount a serious operation against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan cadres in South Waziristan.

However, on various flimsy grounds it has delayed mounting similar military operations in North Waziristan, which is a haven for the leadership and cadres of the al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban.

Since the Pakistanis do not wish to get into any bloody conflict with their strategic assets along the restive Durand Line, the US has been carrying out independent aerial strikes employing their missile armed Predator drones.

Nearer home, despite countless solemn exhortations of not encouraging any anti-India terror activities, the Pak authorities permitted a conclave of the terror chieftains in the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir capital of Muzzaffarabad.

To thwart the evil designs of the perpetrators of terror, all security organs of the state and our intelligence agencies, will have to, by synergetic endeavour and a proactive approach get their act together. The Home Minister had himself declared at the Chief Ministers Conference on Internal Security the other day that “we will defeat these forces of darkness whenever and wherever we confront them.”

During the forthcoming talks thus, Indian interlocutors must put before their Pakistani counterparts, the continuing insincerity by them towards us.

As far as Jammu and Kashmir is concerned, let’s reiterate the unambiguous position stated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that while everything can be discussed there will be “no redrawing of boundaries’, a position accepted by the erstwhile Pak President, Gen Musharraf.

A nuclear-armed Pakistan in real danger of imploding and with its existence at stake, thanks to the many Frankensteins it raised in reality now requires serious assistance from the international community to stabilise itself.

Delhi Durbar
Moily differs with jurists

A national-level meeting of jurists and senior advocates held in the city has demanded the setting up of two commissions — one for dealing with appointments to the higher judiciary and the other for handling complaints against judges. The commission on appointments should include eminent members of civil society, unlike the present system consisting of five senior most judges of the Supreme Court headed by the Chief Justice of India. A separate commission for dealing with complaints is necessary in view of the increasing number of charges of corruption and other misconduct leveled against judges, they said. The meeting also wanted that the retirement age of High Court judges be raised from 62 to 65, the age meant for superannuation of apex court judges. The present discrimination has made many HC judges subservient to the SC Collegium, they said. Law Minister, M Veerappa Moily, however, seems to hold a different view. According to him, corruption in judiciary has not assumed alarming proportions and at this juncture the judiciary is capable of setting its own house in order without interference from the other wings
of democracy.

Was Gadkari really praised?

The occasion was the launch of a BJP/Sangh Parivar journal titled Vikalp, edited by the BJP general secretary Prabhat Jha under the aegis of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Foundation in the Capital on February 11. The occasion turned morbid and bizarre when speaker after speaker made allusions to new BJP president Nitin Gadkari’s age. Gadkari is 52. The treasurer of the foundation Nand Kishore Garg introduced the subject by recalling that both Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya were murdered at 52. Garg did not leave unsaid the fact that Gadkari is also 52 but he underlined it. Then the RSS joint general secretary Suresh Soni poured more water on Gadkari’s hopes by recalling that the last couplet Deen Dayal heard before boarding the train in which he was stabbed to death, read something like this: “Nikle the kahan jaane ke liye, pahunchenge kahan maloom nahin, ab apne bhatakte kadmon ko manzil ka nishan maloom nahin (We don’t know where we are heading for our feet do not know their destination) also implicitly making ominous prophecies for poor Gadkari even before the national council has ratified his election.

More girls joining the Congress

The magic of Rahul Gandhi is working and the result is visible in the increased number of girls in Youth Congress in Gujarat, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry. The membership drive is on in Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Maharashtra and other states and Youth Congress leaders are hopeful that Rahul’s ‘jaadu’ will work there also. They say that in the states where drive is complete, his “charisma” is all too visible. Reeling off figures to reflect Rahul’s charisma, youth Congress leaders say in Gujarat, there were 60,000 girls in the Youth Congress and now their number has increased to a whooping 2, 84,000. Similarly in Rajasthan there were only 8,000 to 10,000 girls in the youth wing and now there are around 80,000. In relatively conservative Haryana and Punjab, the Youth Congress now has around 48,000 and 20,000 girls, respectively. In Jharkhand the total youth membership, boys and girls included, has increased from 40,000 to 4, 25,000. Rahul goes to universities and colleges and establishes a direct communication with boys and girls, they claim. It is their faith in his leadership that attracts youth, especially girls.n

Contributed by R Sedhuraman, Faraz Ahmad and Vibha Sharma

Corrections and clarifications

n In the photo caption (Page 2, Feb 15) the word personnels has been wrongly used as ‘personnel’ is plural.

n In the photo caption (Page 2, Feb 8), it should have read Taekwando as one word.

n In the pointer (Page 1, Lifestyle, Feb 5) the word ‘Quizmaster’ has an extra and superfluous letter ‘z’.

n In Ludhiana Tribune (Page 2, Feb 10) several colleges including Aurobindo College of Commerce and Management were inadvertently named as not having implemented UGC pay scales. They have actually implemented the scale and their teachers were not involved in the stir referred in the report.

n In the blurb (Page 1, Lifestyle, Feb 7) the phrases “as well as” and “at the same time” appear in the same sentence. One would have sufficed

Despite our earnest endeavour to keep The Tribune error-free, some errors do creep in at times. We are always eager to correct them.

This column appears twice a week — every Tuesday and Friday. We request our readers to write or e-mail to us whenever they find any error.

Readers in such cases can write to Mr Kamlendra Kanwar, Senior Associate Editor, The Tribune, Chandigarh, with the word “Corrections” on the envelope. His e-mail ID is kanwar@tribunemail.com.

H.K. Dua Editor-in-Chief