A worrisome job scenario

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

With the working population rising rapidly and job opportunities lagging behind, India, which has replaced China as the world’s fastest growing economy, is in the most challenging phase of its developmental effort.

According to the latest UN projections, India’s population will outstrip China’s by 2022, six years earlier than previously calculated. While China has to contend with an ageing population, India, theoretically, has an advantage over it by virtue of its larger working population. But to take advantage of the demographic situation, it has to improve its ability to create jobs.

Currently an estimated one million people enter the workforce each month. The rate of job creation, which has always been short of the requirement, is now declining. A recent official survey revealed that eight labour-intensive industries, including textiles, garments, BPO, metals and automobiles, created only 135,000 jobs last year. They had created 490,000 jobs the previous year.

A study of the performance of more than 1,000 companies by a private rating agency also showed that the job creation rate was falling. Together these companies created only 12,760 jobs last year as against 188,371 in the previous year. The manufacturing sector companies recorded a 5.2 per cent decline in job growth. In the previous year there was a 3.2 per cent growth.

Three industries account for the bulk of employment in the organised sector. They are manufacturing (40 per cent), banking (23 per cent) and information technology (18 per cent). Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious goal of creating 250 million jobs over a 10-year period cannot be reached unless they generate more jobs.

Some analysts have suggested that studies based on the performance of companies may not reflect the true position as industries are increasingly outsourcing certain types of jobs. But, according to the official survey, there was a decline in contractual jobs also last year.

The dismal situation revealed by the studies has prompted critics to taunt the Prime Minister with questions like “Where are the promised jobs, Mr. Modi?” The fact is that low job creation has been a feature of India’s economic development even before Modi’s time. Between 1991 and 2013, India recorded an average annual growth of 6.5 per cent but did not create enough jobs to attract even half of those entering the labour market.

Modi’s expectation that increased flow of foreign direct investment and his Make in India programme will boost job creation has not materialised. About 60 per cent of the FDI is in the form of private equity investment, which may fetch the investor a decent return but does not necessarily result in job creation. The Make in India programme requires skilled labour for manufacturing and high-end services. Skilled workers form only two per cent of India’s labour force.

Medium, small and micro enterprises are the backbone of the industrial sector. There are about 40 million such units and they employ about 100 million people, making them the largest provider of jobs. Falling exports and difficulties in obtaining timely credit hamper their ability to play a bigger role.

Official and unofficial studies limited to the organised sector do not give a full picture of the job situation. More than 90 per cent of the country’s working people are in the unorganised sector where wages are low and underemployment is widespread.

Although China has fallen behind India in the rate of growth of the economy, it is still ahead in job creation. According to Human Resources Minister Yin Weimin, China created more than 13 million new jobs for urban residents last year. However, the pace of job creation is slowing. The target for this year is only 10 million new urban jobs.

China’s major problem on the job front now is the rehabilitation of 1.8 million workers who are expected to be laid off by state-owned coal and steel plants as the economy switches from the investment-led model to one that relies on domestic consumption, services and innovation.

Interestingly, Arvind Panagariya, Vice-Chairman of the Niti Ayog, which has taken over the functions of the erstwhile Planning Commission, senses an opportunity for India in the Chinese downturn. He believes the high wage levels in that country will tempt manufacturers of certain items like textile and footwear to view India as an attractive alternative location.

Amartya Sen, the economist, has pointed out that India is trying to become a global economic power with an uneducated and unhealthy labour force, which has never been done before and never will be done in the future either. Clearly the government has to do more to realise its goal. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, September 6, 2016.

Lessons in social progress

BRP Bhaskar

The seamy side of India’s development story is forcing itself into public view demanding a review of the nation’s priorities.

A report on hunger and malnutrition, based on a survey conducted in 112 districts across the country, which was released last week, said 40 per cent of the children in 100 focus districts were underweight and the growth of nearly 60 per cent was stunted. It termed the level of child malnutrition as “unacceptably high”.

Another study, undertaken in Andhra Pradesh as part of an international project, showed that while the economy was growing and poverty levels were falling, one-third of the children were stunted.

Since 1975, the Indian government has been implementing an integrated child development scheme (ICDS), which is said to be one of the largest of its kind in the world. Its primary objective is improvement of nutritional status of children in the 0-6 age group.

The budget allocation for the scheme, which is raised year after year, touched Rs 160.56 billion this financial year. This was 19 per cent higher than the previous year’s figure, but groups working among children found it grossly insufficient as 42 per cent of the world’s underweight children are in India.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who released the hunger and malnutrition report, said it was a shame that after several decades of operation of ICDS the rate of malnutrition was still high.

However, the facts the report brought out could not have been a surprise for him. The National Family Health Survey of 2005-06 had found that 58 per cent of the expectant mothers were anaemic and 47 per cent of the children were malnourished.

Low budgetary allocation is not the only reason for the poor impact of ICDS and other health sector programmes. A good part of the allotted money goes towards payment of remuneration to the personnel involved in delivery of services. Also, the government does not act with a sense of urgency.

In 2008, a high-powered body, styled as the Prime Minister’s National Council on Nutrition, was set up to advise the government on steps to address the malnutrition problem. It held its first and so far only meeting two years after its constitution. According to insiders, the decisions taken at that meeting are yet to be implemented although the prime minister wanted it done in three months.

Amartya Sen, the economist, recently drew attention to India’s poor record in social development. He said China had established a big lead in social indicators, and even the smaller neighbours were overtaking India. From being the second best performer in this area in South Asia India had become the second worst.

Part of the problem lies in the government’s pathetic faith in the market economy as the cure-all. Its basic approach was spelt out last week by the Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, C. Rangarajan, who said the country could generate the surplus needed to launch social development programmes if it maintained the economic growth rate of the last decade.

The experience of the other South Asian countries to which Amartya Sen referred shows that the link between economic growth and social development is exaggerated. They are able to forge ahead of India because they are according higher priority to health and education, not because their economies are growing faster than its.

Actually, the government does not have to look beyond India’s borders to realise that the conventional wisdom that social advance follows economic advance is questionable. There is before it the example of the southern state of Kerala, which has registered social indicators comparable to those of China and the Western countries.

In 1969 a United Nations agency noted that Kerala, though a poor state, had achieved vast social progress. Thanks to remittances from expatriates and growth of the service sector, especially tourism, Kerala’s economy is now growing at a slightly higher rate than the national economy. However, it is facing severe challenges as the cash-strapped government is not able to sustain the high levels of investment in health and education which had pushed up its social indicators.

The lesson to learn from Kerala’s experience is that the critical factor in social development is not the rate of growth of the economy but the importance the government attaches to investment in areas such as health and education. The market has not played a significant part in the growth of these sectors anywhere. -- Gulf Today, January 16, 2012.

Missing girls cause no alarm

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Studies have revealed that girls are disappearing from India’s population at an increasing rate. However, there is no firm societal or governmental action to check the trend.

First reports based on the 2011 Census, which became available three months ago, showed that the sex ratio in the 0-6 age group had dropped from 927 girls for every 1,000 boys in 2001 to 914, the lowest since the country gained freedom in 1947.

There were about 7.1 million fewer girls than boys in that age group. At the time of the 2001 Census the gap was only 6.0 million.

In 1961 there were 976 girls for every 1,000 boys. Since then the sex ratio has been falling continuously in India although in the world as a whole it has been rising. In the global population there are now 1,050 girls for every 1,000 boys.

Noted economist Amartya Sen, one of the first to notice the trend, attributed it to neglect of the girl child, leading to early mortality and consequent fall in the female population. He noted that this happened in other Asian countries, including China, also.

In a 1990 article, Sen said an estimated 100 million women were missing from the world population tables. He later calculated that India’s missing women might number 37 million. The United Nations, in 2001, suggested a higher figure of 44 million.

Researchers have established a link between the fall in the sex ratio among children and the technological advances that have made it possible to determine the sex of the unborn child and eliminate the ‘unwanted’ female.

Ultrasound equipment that permits determination of the sex of the foetus became available in the 1970s. Within a decade they were in wide use all over the country and laboratories started advertising the facility.

As parents’ marked preference for male progeny resulted in large-scale female foeticide, Amartya Sen observed that there had been a shift from ‘mortality inequality’ to ‘natality inequality’

The overall sex ratio in India is 940 females for every 1,000 males. Thanks to the comparatively better status women enjoyed under the matrilineal system which prevailed until a century ago, Kerala has always recorded a favourable sex ratio. It now stands at 1,084 females against 1,000 males as against 1,038 females in 2001.

However, Kerala, too, is on the slippery path. In the 0-6 age group, the sex ratio in the state was only 962 females for 1,000 males in 2001. Now it has fallen to 959 females for 1,000 males.

A recent study which analysed census data and 250,000 birth histories from national surveys has shown that where the first born is a girl there is an increasing tendency to abort the second child if that too happens to be a girl. Even wealthy and educated families are inclined to do this.

Prabhat Jha of the University of Toronto, who was involved in the study, says most of India’s population live in states where sex selective abortion is common. Gender imbalance, he adds, has travelled from the traditional hotspots in the north to the east and the south.

Many communities consider a girl a liability as a hefty dowry may be needed to marry her off. However, the prevalence of female foeticide even among the affluent sections indicates that preference for son stems primarily from social and religious factors. Most Hindus believe a son has to perform the funeral rites to ensure their smooth passage to heaven.

The central government’s effort to promote gender equality is confined largely to publicity campaigns, whose effects are offset by the regular fare of the media which tends to reinforce traditional beliefs.

The state governments are too timid to challenge the orthodox elements, and non-governmental organisations working in the area of gender justice are too few and too weak to make an impact.

In a rare display of will to act, the Maharashtra government last month cracked down on sex determination clinics and shut down 131 of them. With the help of a decoy customer, the police arrested three doctors who offered to abort female foetus for a small fee.

It is not possible to place much faith in such sporadic campaigns. Over the past three years the state registered cases against more than 150 persons in connection with cases of illegal pregnancy termination but there have been only four convictions so far. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, July 4, 2011

Pursuit of knowledge

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The old adage ‘Knowledge is Power’ is rarely heard these days. This is not surprising in a world ruled by the idea that power booms out of the barrel of the gun or flows from the money in the chest. But the emerging economic powers are rediscovering the truth of the old saying.

China, which has already edged all developed countries except the United States in economic terms, has just got through the first five years of an ambitious science and technology development programme designed to make it an innovation-oriented nation by 2020.

Two weeks ago, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told Indian scientists to “think big, think out of the box, think ahead of the times” and announced plans to designate 2012-13, when the Indian Science Congress will complete 100 years, as the Year of Science.

The emphasis the two nations are placing on science and technology reflects increasing awareness of the need to acquire a leading role in knowledge creation to claim their place in the comity of nations. Even a cursory survey of history will show that creation and application of knowledge were critical elements that contributed to the ancient glory of many lands. These factors played their role also in Europe’s emergence in the 18th and 19th centuries and America’s in the 20th.

India had set out with certain advantages. The universities established during the British period had promoted English education which gave some Indians easy access to the knowledge created in the advanced West. They had also sustained a small but devoted band of scientists who had attracted attention worldwide by undertaking original research. One of them, CV Raman had won the Nobel Prize in Physics as early as 1930.

The first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, envisaged the use of science and technology to overcome the backlog of development left behind by the colonial rulers. The Indian Institutes of Technology set up with the help of various foreign countries and the research laboratories established under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research bear testimony to his far-sighted approach.

Nehru initiated a programme for use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes. After China conducted a nuclear test in 1964, Indira Gandhi gave the go-ahead for a nuclear test. Although the space research programme launched in her time, too, eventually acquired a military edge, its primary objective was to use space technology for education, health, communication and other activities which could improve the lives of the poor.

Thanks to the bold early initiatives, by the 1970s India had the third largest reservoir of scientific and technological manpower in the world after the USA and the Soviet Union. But the country fell behind subsequently.

Having come under the control of political parties with limited vision, the universities lost the ability to lead. There are now more than 450 of them but not one has found a place in the Times Higher Education’s list of 200 top universities of the world. Six from China and three each from Hong Kong and Taiwan figure in it.

Now China has the most scientists after the USA. Having had to slash funds for research and education in the wake of the economic slowdown, the USA and the European nations are in no position to stop its moving into the top spot. It is boosting its prospects by trying to attract home Chinese scholars living and working abroad.

Establishment of new institutions of higher learning on the lines of the Ivy League universities of the USA, improvement of academic standards of existing institutions and grant of incentives to industries willing to invest in research and developments are among the plans drawn up by the Indian government to ensure that in the years ahead scientific development keeps pace with economic advancement.

A fatal weakness of Indian research effort so far has been the tendency to follow in the path struck by Western scientists. This is not a problem that money can solve. It calls for minds capable of original thinking.

The Nobel Prize winning economist, Amartya Sen, who is heading a body constituted to revive the Buddhist-era university at Nalanda in Bihar, outlined before the Science Congress his vision of a modern centre of learning where scholars from different lands will gather as at the ancient institution. To begin with, he said, it would teach history, languages, social sciences, international relations, management and information technology. Sadly, he added that physical and biological sciences would have to wait for reasons of cost. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, Hanuary 10, 2011

No need for "new capitalism", says Amartya Sen

The present economic crises do not call for a "new capitalism," but they do demand a new understanding of older ideas, such as those of Adam Smith and Arthur Pigou - many of which have been sadly neglected, argues Amartya Sen in an article published in the New York Review of Books.

Sen's article is available at Countercurrents.org