📰 Cabinet clears Bill to restore the provisions of SC/ST Act
It will be introduced in the ongoing session of Parliament; historic, says Paswan
•Facing pressure from Dalit leaders within the ruling alliance as well as from the Opposition, the Centre has decided to introduce a Bill to restore the original provisions of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, which the Supreme Court had struck down in a March ruling.
•The Union Cabinet had given its nod to the Amendment Bill and the government would try to introduce it in Parliament during the ongoing session, Food Minister and Lok Janshakti Party leader Ram Vilas Paswan told reporters after the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
•The decision comes ahead of a planned ‘Bharat bandh’ by Dalit groups on August 9.
•The Amendment Bill seeks to insert three new clauses after Section 18 of the original Act. The first stipulates that for the purposes of the Act, “preliminary enquiry shall not be required for registration of a First Information Report against any person.” The second stipulates that the arrest of a person accused of having committed an offence under the Act would not require any approval, while the third says that the provisions of Section 438 of the Code of Criminal Procedure — which deals with anticipatory bail — shall not apply to a case under this Act, “notwithstanding any judgment or order of any Court.”
Paswan hits out at critics
•The Amendment Bill’s provisions were made public by Mr. Paswan, whose party had given the government an ultimatum to restore the stringent provisions by August 9. MPs from the Dalit and tribal communities — including several from the BJP and its allies — had backed the demand. Calling it a “historic decision,” Mr. Paswan said the Amendment Bill was “a slap in the face of everyone who has been criticising the Modi government as being anti-Dalit.”
•Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad declined to share details of the decision in the official post-Cabinet media briefing, citing the need to first inform Parliament. “This government is ready to do whatever is needed for the betterment of Dalits and Adivasis,” he said.
•On March 20, the Supreme Court issued a slew of guidelines to protect people against arbitrary arrests under the Act, directing that public servants could be arrested only with the written permission of their appointing authority, while in the case of private employees, the Senior Superintendent of Police concerned should allow it. A preliminary inquiry should be conducted before the FIR was registered to check if the case fell within the ambit of the Act, and whether it was frivolous or motivated, the court ruled.
•The ruling was greeted by a storm of protest from Dalit groups, which said the order diluted the law. On April 2, violence during a nationwide bandh left at least nine people dead and hundreds injured. However, the court refused to stay its ruling, leading to the demand from Dalit groups that the government introduce an ordinance or an Amendment Bill to restore the provisions. Protests intensified when the government appointed Justice A.K. Goel, who authored the March 20 verdict, as the Chairman of the National Green Tribunal on his retirement.
•Protests increased when the government appointed Justice A.K. Goel, who authored the March 20 verdict, as chairman of the National Green Tribunal upon his retirement from the Supreme Court.
•While Mr. Paswan and his party had demanded Justice Goel’s removal from the NGT, he said the issue had now been resolved with the proposed amendment. He also indicated that the need for a ‘Bharat bandh’ on August 9 had become unnecessary.
📰 To what end this exercise?
South Asia has seen many crises over citizenship. The Supreme Court must ensure there isn’t another one in Assam
•The ongoing crisis in Assam over the National Register of Citizens (NRC) is largely the creation of the Supreme Court. The final draft list of citizens, published on July 30, leaves out the names of approximately 40 lakh residents of Assam. Although political leaders and the Supreme Court itself have assured everyone that this is only a draft and everyone will be given an opportunity to prove his or her citizenship in accordance with the law before any “action” is taken, this is unlikely to inspire much confidence given what has transpired thus far.
Roots of the process
•The recent history of the NRC can be traced to the public interest litigation filed in the Supreme Court by Assam Public Works seeking the removal of “illegal voters” from the electoral rolls of Assam and the preparation of the NRC as required under the Citizenship Act, 1955 and its rules. The NRC was supposed to be prepared as a consequence of the Assam Accord signed between the Union government and the All-Assam Students’ Union to end the agitation against “outsiders”, promising to identify and remove any foreigners from Assam who had entered the State after 1971.
•Though the first NRC was framed in 1951, it and subsequent iterations were recognised to be faulty and the present exercise was supposed to be done in accordance with the 2003 rules.
•Though filed in 2009, the case really picked up steam in 2013 as the Supreme Court directed the Union and State governments to speed up the process. A deadline of January 2016 was initially fixed to come up with the draft of the NRC though that was missed and after much delay, the eventual deadline of July 31, 2018 for the final draft of the NRC has been adhered to. All 3.3 crore residents of Assam were required to submit documents from a list prescribed by the government to prove that they were indeed citizens of India in accordance with the rules — a process that has been fraught with complexity and confusion.
Arbitrary count
•Given that citizenship is a legal fiction, established or denied in accordance with a procedure under law, one would have hoped that the Supreme Court’s monitoring of the process would have ensured fairness and transparency. Regrettably it has not been so. From the non-transparent “family tree verification” process, to the somewhat arbitrary rejection of the gram panchayat certificates (affecting mostly women), the process has been riddled with legal inconsistencies and errors.
•These are not minor errors. For instance, the supposedly robust family tree verification process has resulted in numerous instances of parents being on the draft list but children being left out — precisely the kinds of errors which were supposed to be excluded. Likewise, the number of people affected by the rejection of panchayat residency certificates is more than 45 lakh — a little more than the number of people who have been left out of the final list.
•The rejection of the panchayat certificates has a judicial angle to it as well. In February 2017, in Manowara Bewa v. Union of India, the Gauhati High Court declared that certificates issued by gram panchayats could not be relied on by residents to seek inclusion in the NRC. This had the effect of putting the citizenship of a large number of women who relied on this document to establish marital relationships in doubt. The Supreme Court didn’t immediately set it aside, as the Assam government did not file an appeal against it. Rather, it was only in December that the Supreme Court clarified that the panchayat certificates could be relied upon, provided the documents themselves had been appropriately proved in court. However, it did not finally settle the matter — it remanded the matter back to the Gauhati High Court for fresh examination. The fate of lakhs of people relying on these documents remains uncertain as each person will now have to prove not only his or her linkages afresh, but also the documents themselves before the appropriate forum.
Role of the top court
•Yet, none of this entered the court’s calculus. Why preparing the NRC within a deadline was more important than ensuring that there was legal clarity over the manner in which the claims of citizenship could be decided is not something that the Supreme Court thought it fit to clarify or go into at any stage in its hearing of the case.
•A much larger question also remains unanswered and one which the court has not deigned to ask itself in the nine years it has been seized of this matter: to what end this exercise? Even if the objections and corrections are properly dealt with, there are likely to be many individuals (running into lakhs at the very least) who will be unable to prove Indian citizenship. The immediate consequence is that they will lose their right to vote (which temporarily ends the public interest litigation). But that only results in the beginning of a new problem: what will be the status of the several lakh individuals who would have suddenly lost Indian citizenship with no recourse in sight?
•Even at the latest hearing which took place on July 31, the Supreme Court seemed unperturbed by the consequences of its actions, all the while making the right noises about there being no immediate consequences for those who have not found their names on the list and there being more opportunities to question the absence of names on the NRC. At some point, the Supreme Court will be confronted with the undeniable question, what action can it allow the government to take against those who are unable to prove that they are Indian citizens?
•Will it allow the government to adopt the crude, communal rhetoric doing the rounds on social media and “push them out”? Will it take responsibility for the protection of the basic rights of those who have been rendered stateless and defenceless? Or will it take the Pontius Pilate option and wash its hands of the whole matter?
•During the Constituent Assembly debates, B.R. Ambedkar remarked that the provision relating to citizenship in the Constitution caused the Drafting Committee the most headache (save for one other clause) as multiple drafts were worked on and rejected over the years before the present Article 5 was settled upon. For good reason too. As Vallabhbhai Patel had then said, India’s Constitution-making process, and especially its citizenship clause, was going to be scrutinised all over the world. As scholar Niraja Gopal Jayal has observed, this was probably because Indian nationalism during the freedom movement had not attempted to define itself on exclusive racial or ethnic bases.
•Seventy years later, India’s approach to citizenship is once again going to be scrutinised by the world. The subcontinent has seen multiple, large-scale humanitarian crises erupt over questions of nationhood, citizenship and identity. One hopes the Supreme Court has the good sense not to spark off yet another for no apparent reason.
📰 TRAI gives nod for sale of 5G spectrum
Reserve price to be ₹492 cr. per MHz
•The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Wednesday recommended the auction of spectrum for offering 5G services for the first time in the country at a pan-India reserve price of about ₹492 crore per MHz.
•In its recommendations, released on Wednesday, the regulator has also called for over 43% reduction in the reserve prices of 700 MHz band spectrum — sought-after for high speed services.
No takers in 2016
•It had no takers in the 2016 auctions due to high pricing. The recommended pan-India reserve price for 700 Mhz now is ₹6,538 crore per MHz as opposed to ₹11,500 crore last time.
•Recommending that the entire available spectrum be put to auction in the forthcoming sale, the regulator suggested that “it may not be prudent to either delay the auction or hold back the spectrum.”
•Based on these recommendations submitted to the government, the base prices and timing for the next round of auctions will be finalised.
•The last auction for spectrum was held in October 2016, wherein around 60% spectrum remained unsold, with the government garnering over ₹65,000 crore.
•Since then, the industry has witnessed strong consolidation, with only three main players – Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Idea and Reliance Jio, left in the field.
•For 1,800 MHz spectrum – widely used for offering voice services — the reserve price of ₹3,285 crore has been recommended. For spectrum in 800 MHz band, 900 MHz band, 2100 MHz band, 2300 MHz band and 2500 Mhz band, the reserve price has been kept at ₹4651 crore, ₹1622 crore, ₹3399 crore, ₹960 crore, and ₹821 crore, respectively. The prices for 2300 Mhz, 2500 Mhz and 3300-3600 Mhz are for unpaired spectrum.
Need of audit
•The regulator also pointed out that there is an “urgent need” of audit of all allocated spectrum both commercial as well as spectrum allocated to various PSUs and government organisations. This should be done by an independent agency on a regular basis, it said.
•For the 5G airwaves, i.e. the spectrum in 3300-3600 MHz, the regulator said it should be put to auction in the block size of 20 MHz. To avoid monopolisation of this band, there should be limit of 100 MHz per bidder, it added.
•While suggesting that there should not be any roll-out obligations on this band, TRAI said spectrum trading in this band should be allowed after a lock-in period of 5 years as opposed to 2 years to avoid misuse.
•While most stakeholders were of the view that the industry is going through a phase of substantial mergers and acquisitions and it is important to allow the market to settle down, TRAI said there is “definite amount” of visibility and it is not entirely correct to say that industry is not in a position to assess its spectrum requirements.
•Concerns have also been raised in the recent past about the financial health of the sector and its revenue growth as a result intense competition.
📰 Scaled-up solutions for a future of water scarcity
While bottom-up conservation movements have helped locally, India’s water problems are huge
•Precious evolutionary living resources, natural infrastructure, are going extinct. While we thoughtlessly build artificial infrastructure, we forget that this kills natural infrastructure which took evolution aeons to create and cannot be engineered. We are missing the essential point that this is our lifeline on the planet. Forests, rivers, mountains, aquifers and soil are being lost at an alarming rate. Today, India is in the midst of a suicidal water crisis as urban and rural landscapes go thirsty.
•Over the years, we have seen activists, scientists and experts from across India working on bottom-up schemes to revive and rejuvenate lakes, wetlands, streams and other small water bodies. While these movements have brought about a significant change at the local level, the scale of our water problems is much larger.
The scale of loss
•Here we have two intractable issues. First, cities today are vast agglomerations that continue to spread, with bursting populations of tens of millions. They are huge parasites on water, food, energy and all other resources. High densities of our cities do not allow for water harvesting to fill the gap. Until now, invasive schemes like dams to service these large cities and the huge needs of agriculture have caused extreme ecological devastation.
•Second, in our global market economies, the products and services that are derived from natural infrastructure have often led to the terminal loss of the source itself. The global free market, and with it the scale of human intervention, now exceeds the scale of the planet. These resources (forests, mountains, floodplains and rivers) are often lost to the greed of governments, institutions, corporations and individuals. This is long-term loss for short-term gain. Natural resources are living evolutionary resources that are constantly renewed by natural cycles. Therefore, they provide us perennial value as long as we use them with natural wisdom and not kill them with exploitation — which is the order of the day.
•Large-scale non-invasive schemes are scarce because they are far more challenging. We shall highlight a few such projects on the ground. These are large-scale schemes that can provide a perennial supply of water to large populations in cities and towns, engage the natural landscape, sustain ecological balance and have major economic and health benefits. If we were to recognise the true value of our natural infrastructure and ‘conserve and use’ our evolutionary resources with the help of science, it would secure the future for humanity and the natural world.
River floodplains
•Our research shows that floodplains of rivers are exceptional aquifers where any withdrawal is compensated by gravity flow from a large surrounding area and can be used as a source of providing water to cities. Floodplains are formed over millions of years by the flooding of rivers with deposition of sand on riverbanks. Some floodplains, such as those of Himalayan rivers, contain up to 20 times more water than the virgin flow in rivers in a year. Since recharge is by rainfall and during late floods, the water quality is good. If we conserve and use the floodplain, it can be a self-sustaining aquifer wherein every year, the river and floodplain are preserved in the same healthy condition as the year before.
•The Delhi Palla floodplain project on the Yamuna is an example of this. By utilising 20 sq.km of the river length and running at half its capacity, it provides water to almost a million people daily. Piezometers and a control system have been installed to monitor water levels and other parameters through the year, to ensure sustainable withdrawal. Besides, it provides huge revenue to the Delhi Jal Board.
•Preserving the floodplain in a pristine condition is essential for this scheme to work. Land on the floodplains can be leased from farmers in return for a fixed income from the water sold to cities. The farmers can be encouraged to grow orchards/food forests to secure and restore the ecological balance of the river ecosystem.
Natural mineral water
•Currently, mineral water is brought from faraway mountain springs, putting huge pressure on the mountains. It is packaged and consumed in plastic bottles that end up in landfills. Forested hills are a result of evolution over millions of years. They are not polluted and sit on a treasure of underground aquifers that contain natural mineral water comparable to that found in a mountain spring. This is because the rain falls on the forest and seeps through the various layers of humus and cracked rock pathways, picking up nutrients and minerals and flows into underground mineral water aquifers.
•Our research shows that the water in these aquifers is comparable to several international natural spring mineral waters. It also shows that if a scheme of ‘conserve and use’ is applied correctly, it would allow a forest (like Asola Bhatti in Delhi) to be sustained as a mineral water sanctuary. About 30 sq.km of the forest could then provide enough natural mineral water to 5 million people in the city. The Aravalli forested hills can provide mineral water to all major towns of Rajasthan. This water can substantially improve the health of citizens and preserve forests at the same time. The marvel is that we can provide quality natural mineral water for all from a local forest tract for 20 times less than the market price and yet reap great economic returns.
•Such non-invasive, local, large-scale ‘conserve and use’ projects till now have not been part of our living scheme. They change the relationship between nature, water and cities. They differ in scale from the small, community-driven projects of check dams, water harvesting and lakes and can service large populations. Unlike large-scale dams, these projects work with nature rather than against it. They can be used around the globe.
📰 Reconsider the ban: on oxytocin
A clampdown on the sale of oxytocin will have severe public health consequences
•The Union Health Ministry’s ban on the retail sale and private manufacture of oxytocin, expected to kick off on September 1, is an extremely ill-thought-out one. The drug, a synthetic version of a human hormone, is a life-saver for women. Doctors use it to induce labour in pregnant women and to stem postpartum bleeding. So critical is its role in maternal health that the World Health Organization recommends it as the drug of choice in postpartum haemorrhage. The government’s ban ignores this, and is motivated instead by the misuse of the hormone in the dairy industry. Because oxytocin stimulates lactation in cattle, dairy farmers inject the drug indiscriminately to increase milk production. This has spawned several unlicensed facilities that manufacture the drug for veterinary use. It is a problem that needs solving. But the right approach would have been to strengthen regulation, and crack down on illegal production. Much is unknown about the ill-effects of oxytocin on cattle. One of the concerns was that oxytocin leads to infertility in dairy animals, and some studies show this to be true. It has also been linked to mastitis, a painful inflammation of the udder. Milk consumers worry about exposure to it through dairy products. The science behind some of these claims is unclear. In a Lok Sabha answer in 2015, the National Dairy Research Institute was quoted as saying there was no evidence that oxytocin led to infertility. A 2014 study by researchers at the National Institute of Nutrition concluded that oxytocin content in buffalo milk did not alter with injections.
•However, even if the ill-effects of oxytocin are real, a ban is not the answer. Oxytocin is simply too important to Indian women, 45,000 of whom die due to causes related to childbirth each year. A parallel to the situation lies in the misuse of antibiotics in humans and poultry. So heavily are these drugs used that they are causing deadly bacteria to become resistant to them. Yet, despite calls for a complete ban on over-the-counter sale of antibiotics, India has been reluctant to do so. In much of rural India, more people still die due to a lack of antibiotics than due to antibiotic-resistance. This has swung the cost-benefit ratio against outright bans. In oxytocin’s case, if only a single public sector unit manufactures the drug, as the government plans, this could lead to drug shortages and price hikes. Karnataka Antibiotics & Pharmaceuticals Limited, the drugmaker tasked with manufacturing oxytocin, has been asked to cap the price at ₹16.56 for 1 ml of a five international unit (IU) solution. However, some private manufacturers were selling it for ₹4 until now. Monopolising production will remove the low-price options from the market. Such a situation may benefit cattle, but will put the lives of many women at risk.
📰 No easy head counts
Be wary of the non-demographer’s misconceptions on population and devolution of taxes
•The differences in the size and share of population across States in India in 2011 as against that in 1971 have raised widespread apprehension regarding the disadvantage of States that have performed better in population stabilisation efforts whle working out their share of funds. Such apprehension sounds premature because the allocation of resources should necessarily recognise the needs of a State based not merely on the count of its people but also on the composition that may be varied depending on the stages of demographic transition that it has experienced over the last 40 years.
•Whether it be population size or its share, the mutual distance between States has become larger since 1971. Also, a particular demographic divide has been observed between States with an attained replacement level of fertility and those yet to attain the same. Hence, raw population size or share being considered in determining the allocation of funds will make those States with moderate or low population stabilisation efforts winners, while those States that have done extremely well in achieving the national goals set in the Five-Year Plans to reach replacement level of fertility will be losers.
Making sense of the shift
•However, the shift in benchmark for reference population from 1971 to 2011 makes sense on account of the transformation of the population composition of States owing to attained increase in longevity and lowering levels of fertility. Moreover, as a third of India’s population is mobile, changes in population structures due to mobility would be also considered as a result of this shift. For instance, as in the 2011 Census, 37.46% of the population is reported as migrants based on the place of last residence.
•According to this criterion, 51.04% of the population in Maharashtra is migrant while the figure is 29.60% in Uttar Pradesh. When the Centre transfers financial resources to States, it is possible to adjust the transfer based on State in-migration and out-migration rates. For instance, inter-State migrants from West Bengal and Assam to Kerala need attention from the State of Kerala and would thus require additional resources to accommodate its in-migrants with support services. Such migrants are to be served at the States of destination and not at the States of origin. Will this aspect be accounted for in the raw population of Kerala?
•The use of population figures in determining weights for financial allocation across States involves population shares on the one hand and population size to compute per-capita assessment of other aspects on the other. In either case, the distances between States have widened, with the demographically advanced ones being at a disadvantage in comparison with those that are yet to catch up. In such a circumstance, it would be wise to avoid using raw population size or shares in the calculus of determining these weights. The solution lies in looking at it in terms of measures that moderate such distances through the recognition of differential needs of different States, keeping at par with their population structures.
Two key aspects
•States vary considerably in terms of the characteristic composition that requires determining equivalence in population size and their share for eligible comparison. In computing such equivalence, the least we can consider are the levels of dependency and longevity. While levels of dependency need to be recognised by the State towards human capital formation, longevity differences need to be taken into account for their bearing on social protection. We should note that States that have achieved high human development also need to sustain the achievement. For instance, on an average, a Keralite lives 23 years after completing 60 years due to low mortality and high life expectancy. Of course, Kerala has the lowest rate of population growth in India among the States. Should we reduce the financial allocation because the State has slowed the rate of growth of population? Absolutely not. This is because the elderly need to be looked after by providing health care and social security, in addition to facilitating dignity at death. We should add quality to the added years in Kerala and this requires financial resources for the State of Kerala. For example, the population shares of Kerala and Uttar Pradesh (as of 2011) stand at 2.81% and 18.78%, respectively. If these shares are read while accommodating the differences in child population shares of 35.69% and 23.44%, then the moderation in the gap of population shares becomes 9.34% for Uttar Pradesh and 1.57% for Kerala. (Moderation in population share means a kind of convergence in the gap in population share which is different from that of the raw population share. Such convergence happens when we take into account other characteristic composition of the population and adjust the raw shares accordingly.)
Issue of mobility
•Apart from these two aspects — dependency and longevity — India’s population has become increasingly mobile with the magnitude of internal migration now amounting to a third of the entire population. Such mobility has resulted in ‘losing and gaining’ States, with negative and positive net migration. This aspect cannot be overlooked as migrants often form a significant share of the economically active population at the destination. Similarly, their absence in the State of origin makes space for substitutions in the workforce. Considering the population dynamics in terms of varying levels of dependency and workforce structure, population equivalence needs to be worked out prior to adopting the Census population of 2011 as the basis for the distribution of Central grants.
Dividend and transition
•In addition, it is also time to examine the demographic dividend. States such as Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh are in their peak in demographic dividend and offer windows of economic opportunities for their youth, both in internal and international migration. The evidence is clear from the data available from the Ministry of External Affairs which indicate that Uttar Pradesh is the leading State in terms of sending emigrants to the Gulf in low-skilled and unskilled occupations. This leading position was held for several years by States such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Now they are ‘losing States’ in terms of demographic dividend and entering into the second demographic transition — population ageing.
•Given the seven criteria for transfer of resources to States (income distance, tax effort, index of infrastructure, population, area, fiscal capacity distance and fiscal discipline) to design a weighing structure, five of them involve ‘population’ in their computation. Hence, population equivalence (which will be in consideration of differential needs as dictated by its structure and composition) needs to be computed and should replace the raw population figures which have become more divergent than what they were during in 1971. Such equivalence will not only make things fairer but also reasonable for States to be able to address developmental convergence. Till date, the apprehensions expressed in the public domain are unfounded and can be termed premature. To say the least, it stems from the naive understanding of demography by non-demographers who raise false alarms regarding success in population control not being recognised in the calculus of financial allocation.
📰 Misadventures in education
Two recent legislative interventions are short-sighted
•The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has attracted much attention in recent weeks for two reasons. First, it put out for public consultation the draft Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) Bill, which seeks to replace the University Grants Commission. In response, it received 10,200 suggestions/comments from various stakeholders. Second, the Right to Education (Amendment) Bill, 2018, was passed by the Lok Sabha on July 18 and is now before the Rajya Sabha. It seeks to eliminate the no-detention policy and reintroduce testing for Classes V and VIII.
•Such misadventures in education are triggered by a long-standing concern that we need a thorough policy shift in our systems of education. While a number of reports and data validate our concerns of plummeting standards in education, the response of the government can, at best, be called short-sighted.
•Thousands of concerns have been aired by academics, policy makers, and civil society on the HECI Bill, particularly because it is dubiously silent on concrete reasons to replace the UGC. This is not to argue that there are no problems with the UGC. Both the National Knowledge Commission Report (2006) and the Yashpal Committee on Higher Education (2009) made a solid case for bringing in a new regulator.
•However, the draft HECI Bill makes the problem worse through over-centralisation and enhanced political interference. The move to entrust all grant-giving powers to the Ministry can lead to politicisation of grant allocation and more interference by the bureaucracy.
•Further, instead of preserving autonomy, the Bill allows the Chairperson of the new Commission to be a member of the Central government, something expressly prohibited in the UGC Act. The bill also transgresses the autonomy of higher educational institutions by allowing micromanagement, for instance, on syllabi. The new over-arching body does not involve the States sufficiently and or accommodate the diverse needs of the country. Therefore, instead of this half-hearted measure, the government would have been better off plugging the loopholes in the UGC.
Detention policy
•The Right to Education (RTE) Bill 2018 does away with the policy that children cannot be detained till they complete elementary education in Class VIII. The amendment gives States the option of holding regular examinations either at the end of Class V or Class VIII, or both. Students who fail this exam would be given a chance to re-appear after two months from the date of declaration of results. In case they still cannot pass, the States will have the option of detaining them. This would potentially push out many children who are unable to meet standards because they have been deprived of quality education. The no-detention policy was to be implemented together with continuous assessment, which would help identify learning deficiencies and correct them. However, the education system has failed to provide continuous assessment and so the government is falling back on examinations and detention, which can lead to students becoming discouraged and higher dropout rates.
•The larger question is whether the no-detention policy will improve the learning outcomes of children if it is brought back. Nine years since the launch of the RTE we have achieved near universalisation of enrolment of children at the elementary level. The no-detention policy is successful in that sense. However, if the aim is to improve learning outcomes, the policy alone is unhelpful. To improve learning outcomes in children, there are other specific provisions in the RTE that need attention. Besides maintaining a good pupil-teacher ratio (PTR), proper infrastructure like all-weather buildings, barrier-free access in schools, separate toilets for boys and girls are pertinent measures to improve qualitative standards enshrined in the RTE. Government data show that out of 10,72,742 government schools at the elementary level, only 7.5 lakh have ramps, 6 lakh have playgrounds, and 9 lakh have libraries.
Issue of funds
•Declining funds is another reason why the RTE has not been implemented in letter and spirit. For example, an Accountability Initiative Report shows that allocations for the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the main vehicle to drive RTE implementation, have remained much below the resource estimates made by the MHRD. Quality-related interventions accounted for only 9% of the total approved budgets in FY 2016-17.
•Interestingly, States like Kerala that wish to continue with the no-detention policy spent nearly all their allocated budget on quality in 2016-17. It is evident that no-detention can work only if there is improved quality, which the current amendment to RTE does not ensure.
•These legislations are only a patchwork agenda of the government as they provide no long-term solution to the issues plaguing the system of education in India.
📰 River of effluents
What is the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG)?
•It is a registered trust that runs the ‘Namami Gange’ mission — India’s most ambitious endeavour to clean the Ganga river. The NMCG has a Rs. 20,000-crore, centrally-funded, non-lapsable corpus and consists of nearly 288 projects. The NMCG’s thrust is on roping in the private sector to not only set up sewage treatment plants but also maintain them. In return, the government offers to contribute 40% of the capital costs upfront and disburse the rest — with a profit margin — over 15 years subject to performance indicators being met. The mission also has projects to clean the ghats, rid the river of biological contaminants and improve rural sanitation and afforestation.
What is the scale of the pollution involved?
•Most of the Ganga’s pollution is due to five States on the river’s main stem — Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal. Approximately 12,000 million litres a day (MLD) of sewage is generated in the Ganga basin, for which there is currently a treatment capacity of just 4,000 MLD.
•Industrial pollution from tanneries in Kanpur, distilleries, paper and sugar mills in the Kosi, Ramganga and Kali river catchments is a major contributor.
What is the status of the cleaning exercise?
•Last week, the National Green Tribunal (which is hearing petitions around Ganga-cleaning projects) pulled up the government for its tardy job and said that the stretches between Haridwar and Unnao were “unfit for drinking and bathing” and that authorities should display “health warnings”. Union Water Resources Minister Nitin Gadkari has promised that 80% of the river will be cleaned by May 2019. His predecessor, Uma Bharti, had promised a clean river by 2018. So far, the State governments have concentrated on superficially cleaning the river by using trash skimmers and improving crematoria-infrastructure.
•The Union Water Resources Ministry has been focussed on ensuring a transparent tendering and bidding process. Only this year have treatment plants at Haridwar and Varanasi begun to be constructed. In May 2014, there were 31 treatment plants with a capacity of 485 MLD. As of May 2018, 94 projects, with a treatment capacity of 1,928 MLD, were under way. A financial audit in March suggested that while Rs. 20,601 crore had been sanctioned for 193 projects, only Rs. 4,254 crore had actually been spent on their implementation.
