India's Development Relative to Asia

After the second world war, almost all asia come out from the grip of European Powers. Asian continent's nation builders set their ambition to make this continent as much powerful and prosperous as that of western powers.

Present Condition of Asia: An Indian Economist while looking at the east, much of the above aim have been realized. The classic example of this is Seoul(South Korea) :

1. No poverty visible on streets
2. Efficient Public Transport and Public Facilities
3. No great Inequality
4. Network of Expressways

South Korea being a backward country in 1960s, sustained high growths since transformed S-Korea to new heights. India was a leader initially and had a dominant role in Asian Diplomacy, but its role decreases and he is no longer voice of Asia now. Indian leadership has lost his position in Asia and fails to realize the central aspect of Asian Development Model (which is investing a lot in Health and Education ). India's GDP per capita is much lower than the Asian power houses. 

Health and Poverty : The great backlog of poverty is much high in comparison to other Asian countries. Even, GoI has estimated that 65% of the people in our country are poor. India's contribute just 1.2 % of its GDP on Public Health while China spent 2.7% of its GDP. India's Healthcare system is an unregulated mess. The poor rely on low quality healthcare facilities. The most basic health measure that any government can provide for its people is to immunise very young children but, in India, only 43.5 per cent of children are completely immunised, compared to 73.1 per cent in Bangladesh. India is falling behind every other South Asian countries in terms of Social Indicators except Pakistan.

Inequality: It is much high, although in China also it is the case, but China has done a lot more in increasing Life Expectancy, expand general education and healthcare of its people. India does have elite schools of varying degrees, but they are serving the privileged classes only. Among the Indians, 7 yrs or older, one in every three males and one in every five females are illiterate. Expansion of human capability is both a goal in itself and an integral element in achieving rapid growth was the basic thought behind Asian Development Model. Japan had followed this Meiji Restoration(1868) and soon become become a dominant nation and won in the Sino-Japan and Russo-Japan war, which are signs of Japan becoming dominant. India's rather than investing on Health and Education properly, it is just giving subsidies to the poor, but it is giving political parties only short term gains and also political parties do not bother as their term is only 5 year and they do not want to look for future, they have their own puppet to blow. Indian politics also runs on caste basis which widens the base of inequality.

Solution :

Health and Education is the main core of ADM. We still can understand this and revive from the problem, the thing that is needed is to obtain efficient human capital. This can be achieved through high investment in Public Healthcare Facilities, increase in number of hospitals and number of doctors, increase in hygiene and proper sanitation. This does not requires just investment, we need to take care of it and proper monitoring the standards of Hospitals. Also, we are running so many schemes in removing malnutrition among in children (which is predominant, almost 46% children are malnourished),  we are running mid-day meal schemes, Iron-Folic acid tablets being fed to adolescent girls and pregnant women. But still there is high prevalent nutrition problems. First we need to concentrate on Health. Secondly, the we need to spend and monitor our Education facilities as illiteracy in India in 2011 was 74% approximately while in China,South Korea,Japan , it is 92% ,97% and 99%. We have many schemes running , i.e Sarva Shikha Abhiyan Scheme(since 2001),Rashtriya Madhaymik Shiksha Abhiyan (since 2009). But still we are low on indicators.

       Now, if the Human Capital have been created, we need to built Physical Infrastructure to get these labor incorporated into. Although India has low Industrial Tariff rates than South Korea, but still South Korea is ahead in comparison to our Industrial Development. It is due to the same reason that Human Capital and Physical Infrastructure are built well there.

We need to built Physical Infrastructure and also need to put that infrastructure to use utilising Efficient Human Capital. We have seen the example of South Korea, Japan and China. We need to learn and act on important aspects to have our pride back which we were having earlier. We have to make our base strong to get long term gains. Political Parties have to quit vote bank politics and act what our nation requires at this stage. 

Rising Farm Wages in India – The ‘Pull’ and ‘Push’ Factors, written by Ashok Gulati, Surbhi Jain and Nidhi Satija of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), Ministry of Agriculture has been in news recently. This paper talks about MGNREGA contribution to farm and rural sector wages. 

         

Gist of Paper : 

• From the statistics on the what are factors behind growth of wages and analysis, this paper concludes that Growth in Wages is contributed more by Growth in GDP than MGNREGA
• Rather than spending 2 lac crores on MGNREGA scheme (which is running throughout India since 2008, started since 2006 in 200 most backward districts), investment in areas like rural-urban construction, agriculture growth will make rise in Real Wages through natural process of development.

Statistics :

• Growth in Real wages was 3.7 percent in 1990 and declined to 2.1 percent in 2000.
• From 2001-2007, wages declined by 1.8 percent every year and from 2008 onwards , wages increases by 6.8 percent every year (uptil 2012).
• Although MGNREGA increases wage expectations, but MGNREGA contributes  <10% of the total rural employment, so here lies the main problem that MGNREGA contribution to employment is very much less, but we are spending on it a lot. 
• According to 64th National Sample Survey about migration, 57 % of migration to urban areas come from rural areas, and 20 % of rural male population is in casual labor after migration.

Considering the above factors, the paper develops a statistical model of what really impacts farm wages. According to the model, 10% growth in construction sector contributes about 2.8 percent increase in farm wages. 10% overall growth(GDP) increase farm wages by 2.4 %. In its comparison, the increase of 10% in employment generated through MGNREGA, farm wages rises by just 0.3-0.5 percent.

Conclusion :

Here from the above analysis done, we can easily see that Growth is the main driver behind increase in farm wages. 2 Lac crores which we spent on MGNREGA can be used into infrastructure development or in other areas which lead to growth can impact farm wages more. 

Indo-China Border Dispute

Indo-China Border Dispute has been long standing problem since 1962 (Sino-Indo war) . Recent chinese incursion into the Doleg-Beg-Oldi sector has become a politically sensitive moment .India want to resolve out this standoff and restore its position. This situation can be solved out by mutual agreements. But the point here is that what are the reasons behind this chinese incursion?

            First of all look at the whole scenario , Jammu and Kashmir is a northernmost state of India bordering China in the east and Pakistan on the west side. Maharaja Hari Singh ruled J&K from 1925 to 1947. When India got freedom, there was condition for princely ruled states that they have right to opt for either Pakistan or India or remain independent. To be part of India, they had to sign the instrument of accession. Initially Maharaja Hari thought to remain independent, but in October 1947, some tribesman backed by Pakistan invaded Kashmir. Hari Singh asked for help from India. India gave help when Hari Singh signed "Instrument of Accession". From then onwards, J&K is part of India. After the Indo-Pakistan war(1965,1971) and Kargil war 1999, there were alterations in the territory occupied by India. Now India controls 60 percent of the Princely ruled state, 30%(Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir) is controlled by Pakistan and remaining 10%(i.e Aksai Chin) is controlled by China. Aksai Chin is administered by China since 1962, and road was built by China connecting Xinjiang to Tibet in 1955-56 which had led to border tensions and finally war of 1962. Now from the PoK, Pakistan ceded the Shaksgam Valley Region (Trans-Karakoram Tract) illegly in 1963 and then China started building its own infrastructure from Baltistan(in Pakistan) to Aksai Chin. This is the story of J&K.       
    
    What China strategy is to enter into some foreign territory, remain idle and occupy it for some time. After that when the situation calms, it develops infrastructure there and then claim that region to be part of its territory. That is how it occupied Aksai Chin. Chinese actually do not sign on the McCartney-Mcdonald border line agreement by British(1899) which draws a border line between India and China popularly called "McDonald Line"and China is claiming its area upto LAC.        

        After the Sino-Indo war(1962), there were two peace agreements between India and China regarding borders namely "Maintaining of Peace and Tranquility along the Line of Actual Control in the India-China Border Areas" in 1993 and "Confidence Building Measures in the Military Field along the Line of Actual Control in India-China Border Areas" in 1996. These would not have been possible if there were such major perceptional differences. So why then there is recent incursion into Daulet Beg Oldi Sector inside india crossing the LAC.

There are reasons behind it , it is not that China want to extend its boundaries. As this area is of no economic values, there must be some other reason behind this incursion. It is China's strategy part to establish communication to Iran via Pakistan. So following are some points by looking at which we will understand the chinese strategy :

• Pakistan had ceded the Gilgit-Baltistan area to chinese secretly and already there are near about 7000 PLA soldiers there.
• China is building rail road from Gwadar port(Pakistan) to Xinjiang in China parallel to karakoram highway and also there is speculated construction of 22 tunnels along the rail route to establish gas pipelines from Iran to China.
• Besides the freedom of movement ,this area provided a buffer area between China and India's mainland.
• Also there will be route connectivity to Afghanistan where China had invested in Energy and Infrastructure.

It is unclear that why Indian troops had to withdraw from its boundaries when chinese were 19 km inside crossing LAC. The agreement between India and China in this dispute needs very thoughtful studies, we can't simply give our areas which are of strategic importance. Having faced this kind of instances, we can't give avenue for China as well as other countries to enter into our territory and freely occupy them. We need to integrate our Defence system because ITBP which was preserving our orders, acted late. The reason is that we do not have integrated defense system as ITBP is under MHA and our army is under MoD. We need to make our communication network strong and also build roads for strong connectivity. We have to learn lessons from this and quickly act upon it.

             

Rising Significance of River Waters

Hi friends,

I read the term "Potamology" ,"The science of Rivers"in "The Hindu" today's newsppaper . I read about this term on internet  as it is new term gaining significance .I thought I should write and share with you .

Rising Significance of River Waters :

You must  be reading a lot about the devastating floods that occur in Uttarakhand taking lot of lives and damaged the state economy that purely run on tourism. Who is responsible for this ?How this has happened ? how disaster management will be done ? what are future remedies ? These questions will arise in everybody's mind . But here in this blog I will try to explain the reasons how this tragedy happens and what our government should do save mankind in future .

The reason behind this flood is the clearing of trees on the sides of river banks due to unregistered and improper buildings that were built around mountains and rivers that leading to soil erosion . This soil erosion causes soil to flow into water and blocks the river flows.

So it is government responsibility to look upon this. I am not as such against government , but this is a general opinion. So we here need to first understand the science of rivers which our government process has to follow so that these kind of tragedies should not happen in future .

Science of Rivers is also called Potamology ,a term which has gained significance due to calamities happpening due to rivers. There are five subjects that come under Potamology :

1)Physics of Running Water
2) The Volume of Water and its Fluctuations
3) The action of water on its bed
4) The Distribution of running water on earth
5) Rivers as a scene of Organic life

Our policy makers should understand and safeguard our rivers , how much water water could they provide , where dam and canals can be built . The main thing to be kept in mind is that "Water in a river runs " , which is defining property of water in a river and it is noone's concern now.Rivers are multi hued and promotion and practice of potamology should be promoted in planning process to see things from holistic perspective and acting according to that.