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Jobfriendly FDI takes wing Thepolicyconfirmsapragmaticscale-back of Nehrueraindustrialdreams
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here is a spirit of glasnost in New Delhi this week, though we use it for freespirit economics rather than politics as it used to be in the Soviet Union of the 1980s. With nine sectors being thrown open this week to increased foreign direct investment and/or portfolio investment, there is an air of easy globalisation, but on careful examination, the liberalisation is essentially in sectors in which the entry of foreigners is unlikely to worry any domestic competitor. However, there is some fine print to be read there. A certain positive in the policy is that it is friendly to jobs. Easier FDI in single-brand retail, aviation, animal husbandry and security services should boost service jobs in these labourintensive activities. Permission for 100% FDI in retailing or e-commerce in food products should generate jobs for delivery staff and farmers alike, but it also reduces the scope for middlemen in the farm-to-fork chain. How it affects current retail practices remains to be seen. The policy can certainly be called friendly to US giants Apple and Amazon, whose CEOs have met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and impressed upon him their desire to participate in the India Story. The government, by relaxing the local component sourcing norm for ‘cutting edge technology’ companies in single-brand retail, is blessing cool consumers but only for three years — which can be seen as a time window for global names to increase local manufacturing or partner local companies. Pharmaceuticals is one sector in which the dismantling of government approval for up to 74% FDI in existing companies means a strong case for overseas giants taking control of domestic companies, and the fact there is no local lobby crying against this shows we may see more collaborations and buyouts. Given the rise of ‘Obamacare’ health policies in the US, it potentially increases the scope for global partnerships involving Indian drug manufacturers. Defence is a tricky business. By relaxing the ‘state-of-theart’ criterion for defence technologies, the government has made joint ventures easier. But what will this mean for a huge defence manufacturing establishment, built up over decades, involving research scientists and indigenous technologies? That is a question that needs to be addressed carefully. Multibrand retail in household goods and media remain FDI holy cows in a regime that steers clear of confrontation. All in all, it is a job-spinning policy that confirms a pragmatic scale-back of Nehru era industrial dreams and post-colonial ambitions to build a strong industrial base across sectors.
Refugeesintheirownland TheUNHCRreportisaneye-openerbutglossesoverthe plightofinternallydisplacedpeopleinIndia
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f there is one photograph of the Syrian refugee crisis that will haunt the world for the years to come, it must be that of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, whose body was washed up on a beach in Turkey in September. The young boy, found lying face-down on a beach near Turkish resort of Bodrum, was one of at least 12 Syrians who drowned attempting to reach Greece from their war-torn country. The latest United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) report — Global Trends, Forced Displacement in 2015 — is not only an eyeopener on the scale of the crisis but also a reminder how little governments of the world have done to tackle the problem, which was in the making for quite some time. According to the report, forced displacement has increased in 2015, with record-high numbers. By the end of 2015, 65.3 million individuals were forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of persecution, conflict, generalised violence, or human rights violations. If these 65.3 million persons were a nation, they would make up the 21st largest country in the world. On average, 24 people worldwide were displaced from their homes every minute during 2015 — some 34,000 people per day. Interestingly, developing regions hosted 86% of the world’s refugees. At 13.9 million people, this was the highest figure in more than two decades. The Least Developed Countries provided asylum to 4.2 million refugees, or about 26% of the global total. While the report is timely and useful to understand the challenge governments have at hand in tackling the crisis, it surprisingly glosses over the crisis of internally displaced people in India. Take, for example, civil strife-induced internal displacement in Chhattisgarh and in other insurgency-hit areas of India such as the North-East or Kashmir. While there is no official figure, civil society organisations in 2013 put the number of displaced people above 300,000. This is just one kind of displacement; environmental problems, caste issues and communal riots have also been pushing people out of their homes in large numbers. By overlooking this huge number, the UNHCR has slurred over a refugee crisis that is in no way less critical than what is happening in other parts of the world.
soCiAlsCApE DIPANKAR GUPTA
Unsuited to the classroom The Haryana government has erred by withdrawing a legitimate order directing teachers not to wear jeans at work
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houldteacherscometoschoolinjeans?Theshort answer is: “No.” Yet earlier this month, the Haryana governmentwithdrewaperfectlylegitimateorderdirecting teachers not to wear jeans at work. Political correctnessandmediaridiculeforcedtheadministrationtotakebackitsnotification.Thatwasabigmistake. Insteadofupliftingteachingasaprofession,thisfurtherconfirmed its lowly status; in fact, put a lid on it. EvenintheUS,theMeccaofjeans,schoolsarenotalways happy when teachers walk in as if on a holiday, or a hike. There are several school boards, such as in New Jersey, Santa Ana, and Colorado, which have prohibited teachers fromwearingjeanstoclass.Thereisgoodreasoningbehind it; as most professionals go to office in formal work clothes, teachers should too. Otherwise it would be ridiculous. Redandromanticradicalsshouldalsonotethatinallportraits/busts ofVladimir Lenin,heisnevershownwithout a suitandtie.MaoZedongwasinseparablefromhistrademark jacket and Fidel Castro wore his formal army gear to office. Exceptions,suchasthecasuallyattiredMarkZuckerbergor SteveJobscanhardlybeanexcuse.Theyareelevatedshowmen, who must flash-dance to project their wares. On the otherhand, checkout photos ofTim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, whose science made Apple,Google,andothers,rich.Youwillnearly alwaysfind himformallyattiredwithanecktie.RarealsowouldbeaphotographofanopencollaredAlbertEinsteinorBertrandRussell. This is actually quite the rule; most Nobel laureates, includingourAmartyaSen, arealwaysproperlydressedin public. It’s time then to bury the myth that an untidy look hides a brilliant mind. Whenit’sall rightforschoolteachers tobedishevelled in
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A starched sari or a clean dhoti can evoke respect. This displays a certain dedication to duty as well RISHIKESH CHOUDHARY / HT
class,themessageontheblackboardisclear.Theydon’tcare and nobody cares for them. They can scream out their demands, but they are not going to happen. To correct this drag, the Third Republic in France, as early as in the 1880s, made sure that all teachers wore dark suits to work. They wererespectfullycalled“leshussardsnoirs”,or“soldiersin black”, not guerrillas in jeans. For the Third Republic leaders the logic was simple: If teacherslookedrespectabletheywouldberespected. After all,these“soldiersinblack”,intheirdarksuits,hadanenormoustaskathand.TheirgoalwastoensurethatFrenchchildrenwereaswell,ifnotbetter,educatedthanPrussiankids next door. Ernest Lavisse, scholar-administrator of the ThirdRepublic,believedthatPrussiawasmilitarilystronger than France because of their superior school education. On account of the prestige that “soldiers in black” received, French schools began to attract some of the best minds.Itwasnotuncommonforbright,ambitiousintellectuals to seek a job in a school, or lycee, after earning their doctorates.Namesreelout:EmileDurkheim,JeanJaures,Merleu-Ponty,Sartre,ClaudeLeviStrauss;theywereallschool teachers before they became world scholars. Itisthis backgroundthatexplainswhyprofessorsinCollegedeFrancearecertifiedFrenchcelebrities.Theirinaugural lectures are pencilled on many a Parisian’s calendar as a major “must-be-seen-there” event. On a more mundane level,Frenchteachers,ofalldescriptions,areallowedgratis entry to museums. Why, some even get coupons that serve them free coffee and meals in select restaurants. Indian school teachers will never get there because they arenotexpectedto.Infact,theirclothesgivetheimpression thattheyareforeverinand outofpajamaparties.Itis notas if western clothes are the only formal option; a clean dhoti,
a starched sari can equally evoke popular respect. This is because careful attention to office apparel, Indian or western,displaysacertainrigourofmindanddedicationtoduty. Therefore, what one dons to work should never be too comfortable. It is interestingthat formal clothes in western societiesarebodilyrestrictive,thoughnotquitethrombotic. Buttheypinchinallthewrongplaces,particularlywhenthe wearer’spostureslackens.Itisasiftheseoutfitsaredesigned to force the person to stay awake and remain attentive. In fact, after the Meiji Restoration, the emperor of Japan ordered that only western suits be allowed at work. But a carefullyworndhotiorsari,ortheso-elegantsherwani,can bequiteuncomfortabletoo,thatis, ifyouwant tokeepthem looking neat. However, for that to happen, the person must know the why and the when of formal clothing. In Japan again, school teachers enjoy higher status than whitecollaremployeesinswishyprivatefirms,andyouwill not find them wearing jeans. There are schools in that even insist on suits. Quite in keeping, Japanese teachers rank in prestigejustafterhighcourtjudgesandcorporatepresidents and earn a starting salary higher than engineers. InIndia,agovernmentschoolteachergetsaround₹20,000 a month and most of those in private schools are paid even less. As their social status matches their salaries and the clothestheywear,theyareoftenthebuttofridicule.Thisalso explains the popular joke where a lazy child is admonished with the question: “Do you want to be a teacher when you grow up?” Perhapsthequestionneedstobereframed:“Doyouwant to wear jeans to work when you grow up?” Dipankar Gupta is an eminent sociologist and taught at JNU for nearly three decades The views expressed are personal
nEwsmAkEr VENKAIAH NAIDU Union urban development minister
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THINK IT OVER ››
THERE IS A NEED TO CHANGE LORD MACAULAY’S EDUCATION SYSTEM WHICH IS CONTINUING … IT IS THE NEED OF THE HOUR TO MAKE THE STUDENTS AWARE OF INDIAN CULTURE AND VALUES … BHARTIYATA IS A WAY OF LIFE AND THE STUDENTS SHOULD BE TOLD ABOUT INDIAN HISTORY AND GREAT INDIAN PERSONALITIES.
NOTHING IS TOO WONDERFUL TO BE TRUE IF IT BE CONSISTENT WITH THE LAWS OF NATURE MICHAEL FARADAY
Illustration: SIDDHANT JUMDE
Over the long term and across generations The Niti Aayog must align the UNmandated Sustainable Development Goals to a new economic trajectory
Loneliness gives you an opportunity to discover yourself
Shyam Saran
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nSeptember25,2015,theworldcelebrated the adoption of the United Nations resolution “Transforming ourWorld: the 2030 Agendafor Sustainable Development”. The agenda comprises 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS) with 169 associated targets. Since governments of all UN member states are committed to the agenda, in theory at least there is international consensus on a new philosophy of development, representing a majordeparturefromlongprevalentorthodoxy. The SDGs cover familiar objectives such as poverty eradication, food, water and energy security, health and sanitation and educationandemploymentforallcitizens.It is not in the objectives but in the means of theirimplementation that the SDGs aredifferent from earlier initiatives, such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). In the SDGs, ecological sustainability is integrally embedded into the development agenda.Thisisasignificantchangefromthe past. The SDGsare also differentbecause they make explicit the intimate inter-linkages among the sectoral goals, both in the nationalandintheglobalcontext.Thereare strong feedback loops among different domains and additionally, domestic interventions influence and, in turn, are influenced by international developments in those domains. For example, watercontamination is not only an issue of water security but also has healthimplications.Achievingfoodsecurity throughmoreintensiveuseofchemicalfertilisersandtoxicpesticidesmayentailanegative trade-off in terms of promoting good health. Malnutrition in children may be regarded a food security issue but it also increases susceptibility to disease and thus becomesahealthissue.Furthermore,inseveral areas international collaboration is indispensabletoresolvingsectoralchallenges in the national context. eradication of polio, a health issue, can only be achieved through robust interventions both at the national and international levels. The SDGs recognise that the salience of global and cross-cutting issues has increased significantly in recent years. These include climate change, pandemics suchasAIDSandebola,andthedegradation anddestructionofbio-diversity.ThusSDGs have both a cross-domain character as well asacross-nationalcharacterandcanonlybe dealt with through global, collaborative responses. While the international community has adopted the rhetoric of sustainability and
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The Western Ghats: A dichotomy between development and environment
recognised the cross-domain and cross-nation character of the challenges the world confronts today, it has not taken the next stepoforientingourdevelopmentstrategies to reflect the new development philosophy underlying the SDGs. The concept of sustainability has been endorsed but its implications have not been understood. Sustainability has two dimensions. One, it implies a radically different approachtonature.Sincetheindustrialrevolution, nature has been treated as a dark force to be conquered and its productive energies harnessed to generate material wealth.Sustainabilitylooksuponnatureas a source of nurtureand a resource pool that replenishes itself, but only if what one extracts from it does not exceed its capacity to regenerate. Current production and consumption patterns continue to cause an ever-expandingecologicaldeficitacrossthe planet. Unless this changes there can be no sustainability. Two,sustainabilityincorporatestheconcept of inter-generational equity. Each generationhastheresponsibilitytohandoverto the next, a planet and a resource pool which continues to ensure human survival and well-being. It is irresponsible to ravage the planettosatisfyourneedsanddesires,leaving succeedinggenerationstobearthecatastrophic consequences of our actions. Seeninthisperspective,thepursuitofthe SDGswillneedtoabandonwhathasconventionallybeenposedasadichotomybetween development andecological sustainability. The notion that there is often a negative trade-off between the two is deeply entrenched.Quitethecontrary,sustainability,inthetwodimensionsreferredto,isnow the indispensable condition for achieving
HINDUSTAN TIMES
all-round development over the long term and across generations. Theworldneitherhastheinstitutionsnor the capacities to design cross-domain interventionswhetheratthecountry-orinternational-level.Existinginstitutionsoperatein sectoral silos while the implementation of the SDGs needs cross-sectoral approaches. There is an important issue of accounting. Cost-benefit calculations are typically carried out on a linear input-output basis. This is unable to capture the true input costs as well as benefits across domains. For example, the cost of production of agricultural cropsmaytypicallyincludeonlyinputcosts such as water, seeds, fertilisers and pesticides. However, the health costs of farmers using toxic fertilisers and pesticides or the progressive loss of soil fertility due to fertiliser over-use, escape accounting. Conversely in a shift from coal-based thermal power to say solar power, the costs in terms of environmental pollution and increased healthrisktothoselivingwithinthevicinity ofthepowerstationareignored.Thiscreates afalsenotionofnon-viabilityofsolarpower as an alternative. Commitment to the SDGs requires a transformed mindset and a different economicstrategywithappropriateinstitutions andpractices.ItishopedthattheNitiAayog, which has been mandated to oversee the implementationoftheSDGs,confrontsthese challenges head-on rather than fall back on existing approaches and mechanisms that will yield sub-optimal results. Here is an opportunitytochartaneweconomictrajectory aligned with ecological sustainability. Shyam Saran, former foreign secretary, is chairman, RIS, and senior fellow, CPR The views expressed are personal
When I am all alone with nothing to do, I feel bored like any other person. Not to allow such a state of mind overtake me, I get into a mode of celebration — the celebration of being alone, and free to do anything that will make my day. This comes on the realisation that boredom can turn you into a goodfor-nothing fellow. And that very soon you will get into a vicious circle of evil and sickness. Therefore, one should take loneliness positively so that the opportunity provides you with a way to act on your creative talents. You can’t be creative while being a part of a mob. Creativity blooms best when one is left alone to look within and explore the possibility of discovering things or getting ideas that make a difference to the quality of life. Being lonely and enjoying such a state of mind also means you are celebrating your individuality in a manner that you can judge your own strengths and weaknesses to make you battle-ready for difficult times ahead. We know that all great persons in history were highly lonely, and they made the best use of being lonely. That is why Pulitzer winner John Steinbeck says in East of Eden, “All great and precious things are lonely.” To live a good and purposeful life, we must be aware that loneliness is the only time when you can get to discover ourselves. And, discovering yourself is discovering others because you can’t hope to know others until you know yourself. It was for this that US novelist Janet Fitch said: “Loneliness is a human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. The best you’ll ever do is to understand yourself.” (Inner Voice comprises contributions from our readers The views expressed are personal) n
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