Surgical Intolerance in a Democracy

                                                         *Saumitra Mohan

          A slew of incidents in recent times have again adumbrated at increasing intolerance in the country, the intolerance of opposition to established wisdom, intolerance of contrarian views or intolerance of standing against the societal consensus. The same has been noticed more starkly in the aftermath of the recent surgical strikes in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. As Indians, we all loved the way our valiant and fearless armed forces crossed over to teach our western neighbour a fitting lesson.

          However, as is natural in a democracy, doubts and questions were raised by a section of Indians about the veracity of the claimed feat. Some sought evidence and some even junked the entire claim of any such surgical strike. Similar questions were also raised about the circumstances and genuineness of the recent Bhopal encounters by many more people as the entire operations appeared to be allegedly stage-managed and made up to many.

          Instead of celebrating the diversity of opinion and a healthy debate in keeping with our hoary tradition of arriving at the truth through discussions and debates (Vaade Vaade Jayate Satyabodh), there have been strong protests and intemperate fulminations against such doubting Thomases and sceptics. All such people have been termed traitors and quislings by the jingoistic fringe. They refuse to accept any questioning or criticism of these acts, which they think should be deemed sacrosanct and beyond reproach. Such an attitude is not only dangerous, but is also against the very ethos which signifies our democracy.

          Through such protests, bordering on intolerance of a differing opinion, we actually compromise the very system we have so assiduously built up over the years. Making everyone toe the majoritarian viewpoint smacks of McCarthyism of the Cold War vintage when anyone suspected of being a communist was put through the mass pressure or persecution to force them to follow the popular political beliefs. Mind you, if the people questioning the surgical strikes or the Bhopal encounters are wrong, then all those people questioning emergency during the 1970s were also wrong.

          Emergency was an ugly political reality of the 1970s and it was again a section of people who were courageous enough to question its imposition. These people were also put through the same grind and harassment but finally, Indian democracy came out stronger as a result of the grit and pluck of a few who came forward to question the dominant view. It was the same intolerant outlook which was on display when some people questioned JNU protests and the alleged anti-India slogan-shouting by a section of JNU students. Kanhaiya Kumar, the JNU Student Union President was vilified and condemned for the indiscretion of holding certain views. The country also made headlines for booking Arundhati Roy, Kanhaiya Kumar, Aseem Trivedi, actress Ramya or Amnesty International on sedition charges, which were later dropped by Indian courts.

          In fact, India’s Apex Court has clearly declaimed that ‘criticism of Government does not constitute sedition’. The Supreme Court in its recent judgement, in fact, cautioned the police against misuse of the sedition law (section 124A of the Indian Penal Code) and directed them to follow its earlier Kedar Nath judgement. It also directed all authorities across the country to follow the said judgement which limits the scope of filing sedition cases under the provisions of Indian Penal Code.

          As someone rights said, ‘one must dig deeply into opposing points of view in order to know whether your own position remains defensible. Iron sharpens iron.’ So, right or wrong, we ought to allow the expression of opposing points of views, howsoever wrong the same may be. John Stuart Mill was right when he said, “If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind”.

          After all, the ‘white’ would not appear white unless we contrast the same against ‘black’. If our arguments or views are stronger, then the same would remain so notwithstanding the opposition by a minority and would, in fact, appear clearer against their banality and falsehood. But if they were true, then we would lose the benefit of being corrected. So, let’s not be in a hurry to condemn or criticise because others may not do or think as fast as we do. There was a time when we also didn’t know what we know today.

          As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said, “Intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, where truly profound education breeds humility.” So, let’s agree to accept a differing standpoint otherwise we would continue forcing a Socrates to take hemlock or forcing a Galileo to recant his discovery of ‘earth moving around the sun’ following the condemnation by the then Church.

          It is quite possible that one single person’s wisdom may hold against the dominant societal discourse as Mill pointed out above. Did not social reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy or Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar stand up against the obtaining socio-cultural wisdom of their time to oppose the ‘Sati’ (live burning of a widow on the funeral pyre of her husband) or promoting ‘widow remarriage’ and many such progressive things in the teeth of opposition?

          Coming back to the suggestions against the advisability of such discussions being completely out of public domain, the same goes against the very spirit of freedom of expression as specified in our Constitution. As our Constitution or laws allow such discourse and debates and don’t fall within the realm of reasonable restrictions, people, as Indian citizens, are well within their right to ask questions. We invited public trial or questioning by trying to derive political brownie points out of these surgical strikes or encounters. As Pakistan would have never accepted them, keeping the strikes secret would have given us a better tactical advantage over her in future.

          Many observers feel that by going public, we actually limited our future diplomatic options. It would have been more than advisable for the authorities to come forward to share all the relevant details about these matters when we agreed to go public, observers felt. Half, selective revelations go nowhere. The jingoistic chest thumping which followed further vitiated the atmosphere by encouraging a pathological one-upmanship amongst our political parties. As here have been recorded and proven indiscretions or deviations by a section of our police and armed forces where they have been found to have indulged in abuse or misuse of power, the questioning is only justified.

          Remember Pastor Martin Niemoller’s famous statement, “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist. Then, they came for the Trade Unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then, they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me”. So, right or wrong, we need to speak up and our right to ask questions ought not to be unlawfully restricted otherwise we would soon lose our conscience and pride of belonging to a vibrant democracy.  

          Hence, in a democracy where rule of law is held supreme, none is above law and our armed/police forces are definitely not so and very much liable to questioning. So, let’s not be intolerant of a divergent opinion as it is this vibrant debate that distinguishes us from the rest. Otherwise, we shall soon be reducing ourselves to the levels of those whom we revile, grovelling in the dust at the loss of the uniqueness and distinctiveness characterising our plural salad bowl culture we have always celebrated.

*The views expressed are personal and don’t reflect those of the Government.

          

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and India

          India is a signatory to the Millennium Declaration adopted at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2000, and has consistently reaffirmed its commitment towards the eight development goals. The targets of the MDGs converge with India’s own development goals to reduce poverty and other areas of deprivation.

          India has witnessed significant progress towards the MDGs, with some targets having been met ahead of the 2015 deadline, however progress has been inconsistent. While India has achieved the target for reducing poverty by half, it is falling short of achieving the target for reducing hunger. The country has achieved gender parity in primary school enrolment, yet it is lagging behind on targets for primary school enrolment.

          India has made progress in providing clean drinking water, however access to sanitation facilities remains inadequate. But on other indicators, the performance has been far from satisfactory. India lags behind on targets for empowering women through wage employment and political participation, reducing child and infant mortality and improving access to adequate sanitation to eliminate open defecation.

          The Millennium Development Goals influenced development policy formulation and planning globally. Along with bringing critical development challenges to the forefront, they also provided countries with a strong target-oriented agenda. While India has been moving in the right direction in some areas, there is still work remaining in the others. This is therefore an opportune moment to incorporate the lessons learned from the MDGs, into the sustainable development goals and build upon the unfinished MDG agenda.

          The eight MDG goals included halving the incidence of extreme poverty and eradication of hunger, universalization of primary education, promoting gender equality and empowerment of women, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDSA, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability including universal access to safe drinking water and developing global partnership for development.

          India has been moderately successful in reducing poverty. In 1990, the all India Poverty Head Count Ratio (PHCR) was estimated to be 47.8%. In 2011-12, the PHCR was 21.9%. This indicates that, India has achieved the poverty reduction target, however, progress is uneven. This was a result of economic growth as well as increased social spending on interventions such as MGNREGA and the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). Nevertheless, estimates from 2012 reveal that, over 270 million Indians continue to live in extreme poverty – making the post-2015 goal of eliminating extreme poverty by 2030 challenging.

          However, eradicating hunger remains a key challenge. India is home to one quarter of the world’s undernourished population, over a third of the world’s underweight children, and nearly a third of the world’s food-insecure people. In 1990, when the MDGs were formulated, 53.5 percent of all Indian children were malnourished. In 2015, malnourishment declined to 40 percent. This is still below the target of reducing malnourishment to 26 percent.

          India has made significant progress in universalizing primary education, and is moderately on track to achieve this MDG. Enrolment and completion rates of girls in primary school have improved and are catching up with those of boys, as are elementary completion rates. At the national level, male and female youth literacy rate is likely to be at 94.81% and 92.47%.

          In 2009, India introduced the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE), however the quality of education remains a major concern. Another issue, which will have to be addressed, is the large numbers of children remaining out of school and failing to complete primary education, particularly in the case of girls, children in rural areas and those belonging to minority communities.

          India is on track to achieve gender parity at all education levels, having already achieved it at the primary level. But women’s literacy rates lag behind that of men, indicating women’s poorer learning outcomes and opportunities. In 2015, India had only 65 women representatives out of 542 members in Lok Sabha, while there are 31 female representatives in the 250 member Rajya Sabha. Hence presently the proportion of seats in National Parliament held by women is only 12.24% against the target of 50%.

          The fourth MDG aimed to reduce mortality among children under five by two-thirds. India’s Under Five Mortality (U5MR) declined from 125 per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 40 per 1,000 live births in 2015. The MDG target is of 42 per 1000, which suggests that India is moderately on track, largely due to the sharp decline in recent years.

          Child survival in India needs sharper focus. This includes better managing neonatal and childhood illnesses and improving child survival, particularly among vulnerable communities. Survival risk remains a key challenge for the disadvantaged who have little access to reproductive and child health services. IMR is lowest in Kerala (12) and highest for Madhya Pradesh (54). The key to significant progress in reducing U5MR and infant mortality rates rests with reducing neonatal deaths, that is, infant deaths that occur within a year of birth. The large scale of under-nutrition in expectant mothers and children poses a critical development challenge for India.

          From a Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) of 437 per 100,000 live births in 1990-91, India was required to reduce MMR to 109 per 100,000 live births by 2015. Between 1990 and 2006, there has been some improvement in the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR), which has declined to 160 per 100,000 live births in 2015. Safe motherhood depends on the delivery by trained personnel, particularly through institutional facilities. Delivery in institutional facilities has risen from 26 percent in 1992-93 to 78 percent in 2015. Consequently, deliveries by skilled personnel have increased at the same pace, from 33 percent to 78.2 percent in the same period.

          The prevalence of HIV, malaria and tuberculosis in India has declined significantly and India has been generally on-track with regards to achievement of this goal. India has made significant strides in reducing the prevalence of HIV and AIDS across different types of high risk categories. Much of this decline can be attributed to greater awareness and increasing condom use.

          India accounts for one-fifth of the global incidence of tuberculosis (TB), but India has made progress in halting its prevalence. Treatment success rates have remained steady and tuberculosis prevalence per lakh population has reduced from 465 in year 1990 to 211 in 2013. TB incidence per 100,000 population has also reduced from 216 in year 1990 to 171 in 2013.

          India has made steady progress towards achieving the seventh MDG of ensuring environmental sustainability. Forest cover has increased to 21.23 percent - an increase of 5871 sq. km, and protected areas cover to about 4.83 percent of the country’s total land area. Reducing the energy intensity of GDP growth through higher energy efficiency will be the key to achieving energy security.

          India is on-track for achieving the MDG target for sustainable access to safe drinking water. The overall proportion of households having access to improved water sources increased from 68.2 percent in 1992-93 to 94 percent in 2015.However, with 47% people with sanitation facilies, India has not recorded similar progress in improving sanitation facilities over the last decade.

          As part of the globalization process and integration with the global economy, India has emerged as one of the major development partners for fostering techno-economic and intellectual assistance to various developed and developing countries across the world. The Indian ICT industry, in particular, the IT software and services and ITES sectors have managed to catch up with the global leaders. As a part of its development partnership activities, India has helped developing countries through technical assistance, capacity-building support, economic assistance, and provided market access to least developed countries.

          The United Nations General Assembly in 2015 adopted the new set of 17 goals for sustainable development.  These goals replace the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG) adopted by the UN in 2000. The new sets of SDGs are to be achieved by the year 2030. While MDGs had 8 goals, 21 targets and 61 indicators, SDGs have 17 goals with 169 targets. MDGs focussed on developing countries whereas SDGs are meant for all countries. Pillars of human development, human rights and equity are deeply rooted in SDGs which were not as apparent in MDGs. Again, SDGs include a vision of partnerships with private sector; MDGs had no concrete role for the Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), whereas SDGs have incorporated it from the framing stage itself.

 The following are the 17 SDGs:

1.     End poverty in all its forms everywhere;

2.     End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture;

3.     Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all;

4.     Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all;

5.     Achieve gender equality and empower all women;

6.     Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all;

7.     Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all;

8.     Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all;

9.     Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation;

10.    Reduce inequality within and among countries

11.    Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable;

12.    Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns;

13.    Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts;

14.    Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development;

15.    Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss;

16.    Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels; and

17.    Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.

          India has made a significant progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and some targets have been achieved. However progress has been mixed. There is a scope to accelerate progress towards achieving the MDG targets that have not been achieved and new targets included in SDGs. This transitioning needs better coordination and convergence efforts at state and national level to strategize, develop a country framework and state specific action plans in context of recently adopted SDGs which focus on five Ps i.e. People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnership.

         

         

HDI: A Tool for Development

           Human development is a process of enlarging people’s choices as they acquire more capabilities and enjoy more opportunities to use those capabilities. Human development is development of the people through building human capabilities, for the people by improving their lives and by the people through active participation in the processes that shape their lives.

          Human development—by enhancing health, knowledge, skills and awareness—increases human capital and broadens opportunities and choices. The human development framework, thus, emphasizes that the true aim of development is not only to boost incomes, but also to maximize human choices—by enhancing human rights, freedoms, capabilities and opportunities and by enabling people to lead long, healthy and creative lives.

 

What is the Human Development Index?

          The Human Development Index (HDI) assesses human well-being from a broad perspective, going beyond income. It is a composite index focusing on three basic dimensions of human development: to lead a long and healthy life, measured by life expectancy at birth; the ability to acquire knowledge, measured by mean years of schooling and expected years of schooling; and the ability to achieve a decent standard of living, measured by gross national income (GNI) per capita.

          HDI was first introduced by UNDP in 1990. HDI is a statistical tool used to measure a country's overall achievement in social and economic dimensions as based on the health of people, their level of educational attainment and their standard of living. Every year UNDP ranks countries based on the HDI report released in their annual report.

How is the HDI Measured?

          HDI is a simple average of the three indices as mentioned above and is derived by dividing the sum of these three indices by 3.With normalization of the values of the variables that make up the HDI, its value ranges from 0 to 1. The HDI value for a country or a region shows the distance that it has to travel to reach the maximum possible value of 1 and also allows inter-country comparisons. The computed HDI of a country is a geometric mean of normalized indexes of each of the life aspects that are examined – knowledge and understanding, a long and healthy life, and an acceptable standard of living.

          The health aspect of the HDI is measured by the life expectancy, as calculated at time of birth, in each country. Education is measured on two levels: the mean years of schooling for residents of a country and the expected years of schooling that a child has at the average age for starting school. The metric chosen to represent standard of living is GNI per capita based on purchasing power parity (PPP), a common metric used to reflect average income.

          Several other variables have gradually been added to the above sets of indicators. Among them, health indicators related to longevity are birth rate, death rate with special reference to infant mortality, nutrition, and life expectancy at birth. Social indicators include literacy particularly female literacy, enrolment of school-going children, drop out ratio, and pupil-teacher ratio. Economic indicators are related to wages, income, and employment. Per Capita Gross Domestic Product, incidences of poverty and employment opportunity are also favoured indicators in this group. They are converted into a composite index to present the holistic picture of the Human Development.

Benefits of HDI  

          Evaluating a country's potential for individual human development provides a supplementary metric for evaluating a country's level of development besides considering standard economic growth statistics, such as gross domestic product (GDP). This index can also be used to examine the various policy choices of nations; if, for example, two countries have approximately the same gross national income (GNI) per capita, then it can help to evaluate why they produce widely disparate human development outcomes.

          The economic performance of a country goes beyond increases in Gross Domestic Product and Per Capita Incomes and encompasses enhancement of opportunities and improvement in social infrastructure such as education, health, housing and housing amenities. Levels of human development is reflected by individual indices such as enrolment and literacy ratios, mortality rates, spread of immunisation, control of major diseases, access to safe drinking water and toilets. All this economic development has to be in an inclusive manner covering the deprived/marginal sections including women.

          With better health and education outcomes and reductions in extreme poverty, 2 billion people have moved out of low human development levels in the last 25 years, the report says. The number of people living in low human development fell from 3 billion in 1990 to slightly more than 1 billion in 2014. Today, people are living longer, more children are going to school and more people have access to clean water and basic sanitation. This progress goes hand in hand with rising incomes, producing the highest standards of living in human history.

          A digital revolution now connects people across societies and countries. Just as important, political developments are enabling more people than ever to live under democratic regimes. All are important facets of human development. A New Social Contract between governments, society, and the private sector is required to ensure that all members of society, especially those working outside the formal sector, have their needs taken into account in policy formulation.

Limitations

          The HDI is a simplification and an admittedly limited evaluation of human development. The HDI does not specifically reflect quality of life factors, such as empowerment movements or overall feelings of security. In recognition of these facts, the Human Development Report Office (HDRO) provides additional composite indices to evaluate other life aspects, including inequality issues such as gender disparity or racial inequality. Examination and evaluation of a country's HDI is best done in concert with examining these and other factors, such as the country's rate of economic growth, expansion of employment opportunities and the success of initiatives undertaken to improve the overall quality of life within a country.

Human Development in India

           India has been placed at 130th position in the 2015 Human Development Index (HDI) among the 188 countries. In 2014 UNDP report country’s rank was 135. Improvement in India’s 2015 HDI from previous year has been attributed to rise in life expectancy and per capita income. HDI ranking of India’s Neighbours: Sri Lanka (73 rank), China (90), Bhutan (132), Bangladesh (142), Nepal (145), Pakistan (147) and Afghanistan (171). BRICS Nations: Russia (50 rank), Brazil (75), China (90), South Africa (116) and India (130).

          As compared to the pre-independence days, India has done well in development in general. As per Human Development Reports (HDRs) published annually by the UNDP, India has consistently improved on human development front and is grouped among the countries with ‘medium human development’.

          In spite of all these developments, India still lags behind all developed and many developing countries as far as human development are concerned. Countries such as Sri Lanka and Indonesia are much better than India with respect to HDI. India’s gender development index (GDI) is also lower than that of Sri Lanka, China and Indonesia.

A few recent HDI facts on India:

·        From 2009 to 2014, the country moved six positions up in the HDI ranking.

·        This year's rank is five spots higher than the UNDP report from 2014, but still the lowest among BRICS nations.

·        India's Gross National Income (GNI) per capita increased by about 338 percent between 1980 and 2014.

·        The expected years of schooling is stagnant at 11.7 since 2011. Also, mean years of schooling at 5.4 has not changed since 2010.

·        With a score of 0.609 on HDI, India stands well below the average score of 0.630 for countries in the medium human development group. But it is marginally above the South Asian countries’ average score of 0.607.

·        Life expectancy at birth increased to 68 years in 2014 from 67.6 in the previous year and 53.9 in 1980.

·        Mean years of schooling increased by 3.5 years and expected years of schooling increased by 5.3 years.

·        Only 42.1 percent of India’s population aged 25 years and older had at least some secondary education. Government spending on education was 3.8 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) between 2005 and 2014.

·        India’s female literacy rate among youth aged 15-24 years was 74.4 percent as against the male literacy rate of 88.4 percent.

·        India ranks 130 out of 155 countries in the Gender Inequality Index (GII) for 2014. This is way behind Bangladesh and Pakistan that rank 111 and 121 respectively.

·        Merely 12.2 percent of parliamentary seats are held by women in India as against 19.7 in Pakistan and 20 in Bangladesh.

·        India is also beset with a high maternal mortality rate of 190 deaths per 100,000 live births as compared to 170 pregnancy-related deaths per 100,000 births in both Bangladesh and Pakistan.

·        In percentage of women receiving secondary education, Bangladesh at 34 per cent far outperforms India at 27 percent.

·        Unpaid work, predominantly performed by women, is estimated at 39% of GDP.  On labour force participation rate for women, Bangladesh is at 57 percent, India is at 27 percent.

·        In 38 countries, including India, Pakistan, Mexico and Uganda, 80% of women are unbanked.

·        For every 1,00,000 live births, 190 women die from pregnancy related causes.

·        The adolescent birth rate is 32.8 births per 1,000 women of ages 15-19.

·        Gross National Income (GNI) per capita has increased to $5,497 in 2014 from $5,180 in 2013 and $1,255 in 1980.

·        India’s life expectancy at birth increased by 14.1 years between 1980 and 2014.

·        If the women of India were their own country, they would rank 151 out of 188 countries in human development, while India’s men would come in at 120.

·        The average adult man in India gets twice as many years of schooling as the average adult woman.

·        On the Multidimensional Poverty Index which measures deprivation on six indicators, over half of India’s population is multi-dimensionally poor, while a further 18 per cent are close to this line.

·        In India, the proportion of economically active population (15-59 years) has increased from 57.7 per cent to 63.3 per cent during 1991 to 2013.      

·        An estimated 26 million children are born every year in India.

·        Under five, mortality has declined from 126 in 1990 to 49 in 2013.

          If India has to reap benefits of the ‘demographic dividend’ in the years ahead, it is imperative that investments in social infrastructure are made in appropriate measure to achieve the desired educational and health outcomes. India has to evolve a multi-pronged strategy with focus on bridging the gaps in access to social infrastructure through appropriate use of innovative technologies for improving the quality of life.

          As a proportion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), India’s expenditure on education has hovered around 3 per cent during 2008-09 to 2014-15. Similarly, the expenditure on health as a proportion of GDP has remained stagnant at less than 2 per cent during the same period. Though the expenditure on social sectors in India has not reflected an increasing trend, an increase in expenditure per-se may not always guarantee appropriate outcomes and achievements.

          The efficiency of expenditure incurred so far can be assessed by the performance of social sectors through various social indicators. An overall assessment of social sector expenditures in terms of achievements shows that wide gaps still exist in educational and health outcomes and there is need for substantial improvement and the need to remove inequalities in India.

          The quality of education determines the quality of human capital and a lot more effort needs to be made to improve the spread of education in India through enrolment and by improving the quality of education in both government and private schools. The Government’s endeavour to build an inclusive society aims to provide education to underprivileged, vulnerable and marginalized people such as SCs, STs, Other Backward Classes (OBC) including Minorities and other Economically Backward Classes through various programmes of education. There is a need to improve the quality of education provided in schools to arrest and reverse the decline in enrolment in government schools and improve the educational outcomes in both public and private schools.

          Providing accessible, affordable and equitable quality health care, especially to the marginalized and vulnerable sections of the population is one of the key objectives of the Government. There are innumerable challenges to the delivery of efficient health services in India, given the paucity of resources and the plethora of requirements in the health sector. Health is also significantly influenced by social and environmental determinants such as age at marriage, nutrition, pollution, access to potable water and hygienic sanitation facilities.

           The rural poverty ratio still remains much higher than the urban. The high rural poverty can be attributed to lower farm incomes due to subsistence agriculture, lack of sustainable livelihoods in rural areas, impact of rise in prices of food products on rural incomes, lack of skills, underemployment and unemployment.

          Except Pakistan, all the other four South Asian countries have reported higher HDI values for females in comparison to India. Apart from the cultural and social factors which prevent women from engaging in economically productive activities outside the household, the lack of education and skills restricts them from participating in economic activity, which leads to their further impoverishment and subjugation in India.

          Gender discrimination in India starts from the womb with sex determination tests and abortion of the female foetuses, discrimination in terms of nutrition offered to the girl child, the length and type of schooling the girl child avails of vis-à-vis her male siblings, inadequate or lack of access to higher education, discrimination in opportunities of employment and wages paid and unequal share in inheritance.

          Society and the Government have relied on the legal route to address each of these discriminations, without matching changes in the social fabric. A social problem can to a large extent be addressed by overall economic improvement, since there would be more for the family and the female members of the household will be less deprived of the basic rights to education, health and other needs. Additionally, the pathways to direct economic empowerment of women require education, skill development and employment of women in productive spheres of activity.

          The development of a country is incomplete without improvement in its social infrastructure. To capitalize and leverage the advantages that India will have on the demographic front with a large segment in the productive age group, social infrastructure requires fresh impetus with focus on efficiency to improve the quality of human capital.

          The Government has introduced the game-changing potential of technology-enabled Direct Benefits Transfers (DBT), namely the JAM (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile), which offers exciting possibilities to effectively target public resources to those who need them most. The progress is already evident with overhauling of the subsidy regime and a move to Aadhaar-DBT. It is paving the way for expenditure rationalization and is ensuring the removal of so far undetected fake and duplicate entities from beneficiary lists, resulting in substantial savings of public money. Transparency and accountability of flow of funds through technology intervention will bring in the desired educational and health outcomes for the population and pave the way for a healthy and educated India in the near future.

Global Slavery Index: Tackling Modern Slavery In India

          India has been undergoing a remarkable 'triple transition', where economic growth is both driving and is being driven by the rapid socio-political changes. Notwithstanding these remarkable changes and given India’s more than 1.3 billion population, there are still at least 270 million people living on less than US$1.90 per day. While laws, systems and attitudes regarding key 'fault lines' including the caste system, gender and feudalism are rapidly changing, social changes on these scores definitely takes time. In this context, it is perhaps not surprising that existing research suggests that all forms of modern slavery continue to exist in India, including inter-generational bonded labour, forced child labour, commercial sexual exploitation, forced begging, forced recruitment into non-state armed groups and forced marriage.

          According to the 2016 Global Slavery Index, released by Australia-based Walk Free Foundation recently, an estimated 45.8 million people, including women and children, are subject to one or the other form of modern slavery in the world, compared to 35.8 million in 2014. Unlike historical slavery in which people were held as legal property, a practice universally outlawed now, modern slavery generally subsumes human trafficking, forced labor, bondage from indebtedness, forced, servile marriage or commercial sexual exploitation. Modern slavery refers to situations of exploitation that a person cannot leave because of threats, violence, coercion and abuse of power or deception.

          With 18.35 million victims of forced labour, India has the dubious distinction of having the highest number of people trapped in modern slavery. India tops the world slavery index with over 40 per cent of the total people in slavery in the top ten economies of the world. In terms of absolute numbers, India is followed by China (3.39 million), Pakistan (2.13 million), Bangladesh (1.53 million) and Uzbekistan (1.23 million). These five countries together account for nearly 58 per cent of the world’s enslaved. Incidences of slavery were found in all 167 countries in the index, with the above Asian countries occupying the top five places.

          The countries with the lowest estimated prevalence of modern slavery by the proportion of their population are Luxembourg, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden and Belgium, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. These countries generally have more economic wealth, score higher on government response, have low levels of conflict, and are politically stable with a willingness to combat modern slavery.

          The sectors engaging the highest number of modern slaves in India as indicated in the said survey include domestic work, bonded labour, prostitution, human trafficking, forced marriage, the construction and commercial sex industries, agriculture, forced recruitment in armed violence, fishing, manufacturing, manual labour, and forced begging. While India is home to more enslaved people than any other country, the Walk Free Foundation report said it had made “significant progress” in measures to address the problem. India has criminalised human trafficking, slavery, forced labour, child prostitution and forced marriage while also regulating child labour and domestic work.

          The Global Slavery Index  has based its survey findings on three main areas of measurement including prevalence of slavery, the strength of a government’s response in battling and preventing slavery, and vulnerability of the country’s citizens to modern slavery. However, the survey methodology as followed has been questioned by experts.

          A major drawback of the Index is the extrapolation process used to estimate the number of those enslaved. Since 2014, survey questions based on the possible occurrence of forced labor have been incorporated into Gallup’s World Poll, but only in 25 countries (and seven of those countries’ estimates reflect survey data from 2014). Survey data is then extrapolated to the remaining 139 countries, which are now grouped into twelve clusters (the number of clusters has doubled since 2014).

          The extrapolation process also uses secondary source data, taking into account additional factors such as state-sanctioned forced labor and conflict. Even without an extensive background on the prevalence of forced labor, it would be easy to see the flaws and implications this method poses. For example, according to the index, Japan is ranked only one slot below Yemen for the absolute number of those in modern slavery despite their drastically different total populations.      Anyone with even a basic knowledge of the economic and political climate of these two countries would question the validity of this assertion. Clustering countries together based on such limited primary data creates false representation of the actual state of modern day slavery in many countries. And publicizing such data that is not accurate could in turn distort vital policy decisions, law enforcement efforts, and budgetary allocations.

          The Year-on-year estimates are also found questionable. In 2014, the total number of those estimated to be enslaved was roughly 36 million. In 2016, that number has been estimated to be 45.8 million. Has the number of those enslaved globally actually risen or should we attribute this increase to a larger sample size?  Either way, there is no mention of past years’ results or analysis to assess the rise or fall in numbers year to year.

          Another area of major concern has been the manner in which the primary data was collected. Most notably, the sample size was extremely small. In the 25 countries where surveys have been administered, roughly 1000 random families were sampled in each country (with the exception of Russia and India, with 2000 and 3000 families, respectively). In Pakistan, where the population is roughly 182 million, the representative sample amounts to .00001 percent of citizens, which arguably is too small for a sample to be representative.

          Again, the target population of the surveys was those aged 15 and older, leaving out a large portion of child and teenage victims. In addition, the surveys were primarily conducted in source countries in hopes that upon return migrant workers would be free to speak about their experiences. Arguably, household surveys in developed countries may not reveal the same kind of vulnerabilities as those countries with a large migrant population.

          Yet, this strategy again omits major populations of vulnerable people in destination countries (countries that people are trafficked or migrate to) who may actually be the best and most current representative sample. Furthermore, it assumes the ‘developed’ world has less of a slavery problem than ‘undeveloped’ or ‘developing’ source countries. In fact, there have been many reports of ‘sweat shops’ in some of the developed countries with very unedifying working conditions.

          All said and done, the Global Slavery Index provides a basis to assess the problem of forced labor and modern day slavery. It has garnered attention of policy makers from across the world. There is no doubt the Index team of researchers worked diligently and effortlessly on producing and improving upon a detailed methodology for bringing out the phenomenon of modern slavery to the fore. The catch, however, lies in publicizing data which is not grounded in validated research and may contribute to a misguided approach of tackling the problem of modern day slavery.

          The results do provide insights into the pervasive exploitation of people throughout the world and focuses much-needed spotlight to the problem. It has engaged governments by assessing their responses, and could be a tool in holding our leaders accountable for taking action to fix the problem of modern slavery. One is sure that the policy makers across the world including India would sit up and take notice to make positive interventions to reduce the incidence of modern slavery.