‘India has 31% of world’s poor kids’
Of the country’s 217 million children, nearly 50% endure multidimensional poverty, says Oxford survey
•About 31% of the world’s “multidimensionally poor” children live in India, according to a new report by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), a poverty reduction project grounded in economist Amartya Sen’s ‘capability approach’.
•“In terms of countries, fully 31% of the 689 million poor children live in India, followed by Nigeria (8%), Ethiopia (7%) and Pakistan (6%),” noted the survey, titled ‘Global Multidimensional Poverty Index [MPI], 2017’. OPHI is an economic research centre at the Oxford University, led by Professor Sabina Alkire, and the study is based on a survey conducted among 103 countries.
•A “multidimensionally poor” child is one who lacks at least one-third of ten indicators, grouped into three dimensions of poverty: health, education and standard of living. The health dimension comprises indicators such as nutrition, child mortality, and education. Under standard of living are indicators such as access to cooking fuel, improved sanitation, safe drinking water, electricity, flooring, and asset ownership.
•In terms of the number of such multidimensionally poor children as a proportion of the total population, India stood 37th among 103 countries. Out of India’s 217 million (21.7 crore) children, 49.9% were multidimensionally poor. However, the survey pointed out that the data for India were “somewhat outdated”, being based on the Indian Human Development Survey of 2011-2012.
Staggering number
•“In terms of absolute numbers, India accounts for both the highest and a staggering number of multi-dimensionally poor people. Sadly, more than 528 million (52.8 crore) Indians are poor, which is more people than all the poor people living in Sub-Saharan Africa combined,” the survey noted. It further stated that nearly 50% of the children in 103 countries were multidimensionally poor.
•“Of the 1.45 billion (145 crore) people (from the 103 countries) who are multidimensionally poor; 48% are children. That is a total of 689 million (68.9 crore) children who live in multidimensional poverty,” said thereport. According to the study, 87% of the multidimensionally poor children lived in South Asia (44 percent) and Sub-Saharan Africa (43%). “In Ethiopia, Niger, and South Sudan, over 90 % of the children are MPI poor,” it stated.
•As for the intensity of poverty, the average percentage of deprivation in terms of the 10 MPI categories was highest in Sub-Saharan Africa, where multidimensionally poor children were “simultaneously deprived” in 58% of the indicators. Sub-Saharan Africa was followed by the region described as the Arab States (53%). South Asia occupied the third spot, with children deprived in 49% of the MPI indicators.
•Describing the findings as “deeply disturbing”, the director of OPHI Sabina Alkire said, “This is a wake-up call to the international community which has adopted the global Sustainable Development Goals and takes seriously Goal 1, the eradication of poverty in all its forms and dimensions.”
ISRO abuzz with Monday’s heavy-lift rocket launch
India eyes slot in 4-tonne club of developed nations
•An anxious space establishment is keeping its fingers crossed over the launch of its new and most powerful rocket on June 5.
•On that evening, the indigenous GSLV-Mark III will make a bid to breach a heavy-lift rocket club that can put four-tonne satellites into space. The U.S., Russia, Europe, China and Japan are already there.
•The first development vehicle, called GSLV-MkIII D-1, is slated to fly from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota at 5.28 p.m., says the Indian Space Research Organisation.
•The success of the first full flight of Mk III will mean that soon, Indian communication satellites can be lofted into space from within the country. It will also improve ISRO’s ability to reach heavier satellites to both — the higher geostationary transfer orbit or GTO of 36,000 km; and to low-Earth orbit or LEO of up to 800 km. ISRO Chairman and Secretary, Department of Space, A.S. Kiran Kumar, told The Hindu : “MkIII should enable us to launch communication satellites totally in India without going out. That is the primary aim.”
•“We are improving our capacity to put higher payloads into GTO and LEO. What we now have with MkII is capability for lifting 2.2 tonnes to GTO. This rocket will give us a higher weight capability than what we now have, for both GTO and LEO. Since 1995, we have launched all Earth observation satellites [which are smaller] ourselves on the [lighter lifting] PSLV rocket. Once we are through with GSLV MkIII, we will be able to launch all communication satellites ourselves.”
•Independence apart, an indigenous launch vehicle also means lower cost of putting spacecraft to orbit, said K. Sivan, Director of the lead rocket development centre, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram.
Larger payload soon
•The first payload, communication satellite GSAT-19, however, has been kept below 4 tonnes — at a safe 3,136 kg. “We will subsequently increase the payload,” Mr. Kiran Kumar said. Communication spacecraft are generally put into GTOs first (the orbit is adjusted over days.)
•Although MkIII was approved in 2002 and work on it and its facilities began over the last six to eight years, the most intensive part was during 2014-16. In December 2014, ISRO conducted a partial flight using only MkIII’s solid motor S200 and liquid stage L110, flying it to around 160 km.
Gross misuse
The Supreme Court’s caution against use of ‘Goondas Act’ for arbitrary detention is timely
•Preventive detention laws in the country have come to be associated with frequent misuse. Such laws confer extraordinary discretionary powers on the executive to detain persons without bail for a period that may extend to one year and courts tend to review them on the touchstone of strict adherence to the prescribed procedure. Sometimes they question the invocation of the draconian power when sufficient provisions are available in the ordinary laws of the land. Several States have a law popularly known as the ‘Goondas Act’ aimed at preventing the dangerous activities of specified kinds of offenders. In a recent order, the Supreme Court has questioned the use of words such as “goonda” and “prejudicial to the maintenance of public order” as a “rhetorical incantation” solely to justify an arbitrary detention order. It struck down the detention of a man who had allegedly sold spurious chilli seeds in Telangana, holding that the grounds of detention were extraneous to the Act. This detention order has captured what is wrong with the frequent resort to preventive detention laws. It stated that recourse to normal legal procedure would be time-consuming and would not be an effective deterrent against the sale of spurious seeds. Therefore, it claimed, there was no option but to invoke the preventive detention law to insulate society from the person’s evil deeds. The court rightly termed this as a gross abuse of statutory powers.
•The Goondas Act is meant to be invoked against habitual offenders, but in practice it is often used for a host of extraneous reasons. The police tend to use it to buy themselves more time to investigate offences and file a charge sheet. At times, it is used merely to send out a “tough message”. For instance, four persons seen in video footage of women being molested in Rampur in Uttar Pradesh were detained under the Act even though it was not clear if they were habitual offenders. And there are times when preventive detention is overtly political. The recent detention of four political activists in Chennai under the Goondas Act is a direct result of a pathological tendency in Tamil Nadu to crack down on any kind of political activity even remotely linked to the Sri Lankan Tamils issue. The detention of Thirumurugan Gandhi, leader of the ‘May 17 Movement’, a pro-Tamil Eelam group, and three of his associates under the Goondas Act is a brazen violation of their fundamental rights and another instance of abuse of the law. The case involved nothing more than violation of prohibitory orders to hold a candle-light vigil in memory of Sri Lankan Tamils who died in the last phase of the civil war in 2009. Those who authorise such preventive detention for flimsy reasons should understand that prevention of crime needs an efficient system of investigation and trial, and not draconian laws.
Trump targets India, China as U.S. exits climate pact
Says Paris agreement gives undue advantage to the world’s leading polluters
•The U.S. has stopped implementation of its commitments under the Paris climate agreement signed by 195 countries in 2015, President Donald Trump announced on Thursday, ignoring pleas from international allies and a significant section of U.S. political and business leaders.
•The accord “would undermine our economy, hamstring our workers, weaken our sovereignty…,” Mr. Trump, who had campaigned in the 2016 election promising to pull out from it, said.
•The Paris agreement gives undue advantage to India and China, “the world’s leading polluters”, at the cost of U.S. interests, Mr. Trump said, unravelling a critical area of mutual interest and cooperation between New Delhi and Washington in recent years.
Obama’s legacy
•India ratified the agreement last year, and former President Barack Obama considered it as a defining legacy of his tenure.
•Mr. Trump’s tirade against India, whose per capita carbon emission is one-tenth of the U.S., comes ahead of a likely visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washington later this month.
•“China will be allowed to build hundreds of additional coal plants… India will be allowed to double its coal production by 2020. Think of it: India can double their coal production. We’re supposed to get rid of ours,” the President said, adding that the agreement “is less about the climate and more about other countries gaining a financial advantage over the U.S.”
•“India makes its participation contingent on receiving billions and billions and billions of dollars in foreign aid from developed countries,” Mr. Trump said, of the financing commitments by developed countries under the pact that is widely considered inadequate to deal with the challenges of climate change.
Decision questioned
•The President’s decision was immediately challenged by the Democrats and business leaders. “Disappointed with today’s decision. Google will keep working hard for a cleaner, more prosperous future for all,” CEO Sundar Pichai posted on Twitter.
•Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Disney CEO Robert Iger resigned from the President’s economic advisory council in protest. GM said it considered clean energy technologies as a good business opportunity.
Trumping the climactic exit
U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement could help galvanise greater global action and cement new alliances
•American President Donald Trump announced on June 1 that the U.S. would exit the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, stating he was putting America first. Remarkably for a country that has unambiguously contributed most to causing climate change, Mr. Trump’s speech was cloaked in victimhood. He argued that the agreement is unfair to his country because it hurts American jobs, is a disguised form of income redistribution, and impinges on the country’s sovereignty.
•What, practically, does the U.S. exit imply for the battle against climate change? How do we unpack and counter the world’s sole superpower’s scarcely believable claim to victimhood? And how might India most usefully engage, given our deep vulnerabilities to the impacts of climate change?
•In practical terms, the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris Agreement is an enormous setback to effective climate action. As the largest historical emitter and the second-largest current emitter of greenhouse gases, the U.S. has a huge role to play in reducing emissions. It also has obligations to provide finance and technology support to developing countries, from which it will now walk away. Indeed, Mr. Trump even cited India’s financial needs as a reason for inaction, despite the fact that India has moved further and faster down the path of clean energy than most, based entirely on domestic resources. Other, smaller countries, less responsible for the problem, could justifiably now wonder why they should act when the U.S. has chosen to abdicate responsibility. Meeting a two degree temperature limit target just got much harder.
•While it would be irresponsible to suggest this action is anything other than a huge setback, there are also three important caveats, which provide a glimmer of a silver lining.
Three silver linings
•First, this was the second-worst, not the worst, outcome. More damaging would have been the other option Mr. Trump was reportedly considering: stay in the Paris Agreement, but substantially lower the U.S. pledge. Until this decision, the EU and even American environmentalists favoured this option, as a way of keeping the U.S. at the table. But as my colleague Lavanya Rajamani asked in a CPR blog post, “at what cost?” Sanctifying a weaker U.S. pledge would have violated the principle of ‘progression’ that lies at the heart of the Paris Agreement — while countries pick their own pledge, they cannot backslide from that pledge, thereby enabling a virtuous cycle over time. Accommodating the U.S. once again — they also walked away from the Kyoto Protocol — would have sent a signal that any country, at any time, could legitimately weaken an inconvenient pledge. While countries may also mimic the U.S. in walking away, the political cost of doing so is much higher than lowering a pledge, and so a domino effect is less likely.
•Second, the U.S. exit reduces the likelihood that the Americans will play a destructive role in the further elaboration of the agreement’s mechanisms. These negotiations are important. They will determine transparency provisions on countries’ policies and achievements, the extent and means of attention to adaptation concerns, and other issues that are central to building a virtuous cycle. Better to have an angry and scornful U.S. outside a robust agreement, with the prospect of re-entering at a future date, than to have it in, but at the cost of an eviscerated deal.
•Third, the U.S. exit makes more transparent the political stakes on climate change in the U.S., and is more likely to force a national conversation in that country on where its interests lie. The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication reports that a majority of voters in every state say that the U.S. should participate in the Paris Agreement. States, cities and communities across much of the U.S. are staunch supporters of action, irrespective of federal leadership. If so, these heartening signs offer climate-concerned American citizens an opportunity to more productively engage, and transform, U.S. domestic climate politics. Doing so would be far more productive, in the longer term, than perpetuating a trend of accommodating the U.S. and dragging down global action.
•An open and engaged political debate on climate change in the U.S. is also needed to query the language of victimhood that pervades Mr. Trump’s speech. Left unchallenged, it risks propagating a perspective that is deeply corrosive, and makes international cooperation in the future, including a future U.S. re-entry, much harder. There are two elements to the Trump narrative.
Challenging the narrative
•First, and more challenging, is the appropriation by Mr. Trump of the language of fairness. In his telling, responsibility for causing the problem and different levels of capacity of countries to act, both of which are bedrocks of the UN climate agreement, are entirely ignored as salient factors. Yet, twenty years of climate negotiations have agreed that these two aspects form the basis for deciding which countries should act first, and which should help with finance. This principle was reinforced at Paris as part of a collective bargain, albeit in more nuanced language and after stiff negotiation. In the Trump retelling, the past is irrelevant, and so are differential levels of poverty and wealth. This cannot go unchallenged.
•Second, and less difficult, is the rejection of clean energy as promoting national interests. Instead, Mr. Trump’s policies are based on turning back the clock to prioritise coal and other fossil fuels. This is at least partly informed by narrow party politics in the U.S., and is unlikely to stand the test of time and empirical scrutiny. It is, therefore, an easier, if still challenging, political battle to win in the U.S. than the issue of fairness. But both issues need to be honestly discussed in the U.S. if it is to eventually re-engage productively in global collective action. Well utilised, Mr. Trump’s actions may be the opportunity to truly energise the many American citizens who do care about responsible stewardship of the planet.
•The urgent task at hand for the rest of the global community, however, is to ensure that the Paris Agreement remains in place and even wins renewed support.
India’s role going ahead
•Re-negotiating an agreement, which Mr. Trump has demanded, should be entirely taken off the table through robust diplomatic activity. And here, India’s role could be potentially crucial. During his recent visit with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister Narendra Modi clearly and usefully articulated India’s support for climate action. Now, in the wake of clarity about Mr. Trump’s intent, India could go further. India could, for example, play a leadership role in mobilising the climate-vulnerable countries in our region and beyond, to recommit to and buttress the Paris Agreement. India could also explicitly and formally make common cause with countries such as China and the EU, which have reportedly planned an alliance to lead implementation of the Paris Agreement. Based on our recent track record of falling solar prices and declining estimates of coal needs, India is also well placed to forcefully make the case for the merits of a clean energy transition.
•Mr. Trump’s actions to exit the U.S. from the Paris Agreement are undoubtedly a huge shock to the established regime for global climate protection. But, it is also the case that the grinding, technocratic and legalistic process of global climate negotiations can obscure the underlying issues at stake. The U.S. exit from the Paris Agreement could help bring back into focus these stakes, particularly for the poorest, galvanise greater action at multiple scales, help bring together unlikely bedfellows and cement new alliances. These would be appropriate responses to an otherwise destructive and irresponsible act.
We need Paris
The U.S. strikes a blow to the climate pact, but the rest of the world must step up the efforts
•In abandoning the Paris Agreement on climate change, U.S. President Donald Trump has chosen to adopt a backward-looking course on one of the most important issues facing humanity. Ignoring scientific evidence on carbon emissions, Mr. Trump has carried his contempt for environmental regulations to an extreme with the decision to pull out of a hard-won compact that seeks to make the world safer for future generations. His move is incongruent with economic reality, because the most valuable American companies in manufacturing, computing, banking services and retailing, ranging from General Electric to Apple and Tesla, all see a future for growth and employment in green innovation, and not in fossil fuels. Some of them have begun reaping the benefits. For poorer residents of various countries, though, weakening of the climate agreement and failure to progressively reduce carbon emissions by 2020 and beyond threaten to impose misery and deepen poverty. Every successive year is becoming hotter than the previous one, and the ice sheets in West Antarctica and Greenland, which hold the key to sea levels, have recorded a steady loss in mass. As a major legacy polluter, the U.S. has a responsibility to mitigate the damage. This is something that Barack Obama recognised, but Mr. Trump has abdicated.
•It is heartening, however, that there is strong support for the Paris Agreement among many individual States and cities in the U.S., while the European Union and China, which together represent about 39% of man-made emissions, now effectively lead the effort to cut greenhouse gases. Energy efficiency is having an impact, and has levelled off coal use in America; it has in fact fallen over the past four years, including in 2016, in spite of an overall rise in energy consumption. Mr. Trump’s assertion that he represents Pittsburgh, not Paris, is clearly misplaced. India, which he has unfairly blamed for seeking climate funds and building coal plants, should strengthen its pledge to cut the emissions intensity of GDP by 35% by 2030, based on 2005 levels, and expand its ambitious renewable energy programme. The wider challenge now is to maintain the momentum on climate finance for mitigation and adaptation, since the U.S. pledge of $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund made earlier is unlikely to be fulfilled. Funding is crucial for poorer countries in order to cope with extreme weather events and sharp variations in food production caused by climate change. The U.S. exit should not affect the overall goal, which is to keep the increase in global average temperature over pre-industrial levels to less than 2°C. Equally, the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities that underpins the UN climate framework, and casts a duty on industrial powers responsible for the world’s accumulated carbon emissions, needs to be strengthened.
Economy to grow 7.5% in FY18: Panagariya
May return to 8% growth by FY19, says NITI Aayog’s Vice- Chairman; commits to better data on jobs
•A day after India lost the tag of the world’s fastest growing economy to China, with GDP growth slipping to 6.1% in the last quarter of 2016-17, NITI Aayog vice chairman Arvind Panagariya said he expects 7.5% growth in the current financial year and possibly a return to the 8% growth rate by the end of the present NDA government’s tenure.
•Stressing that India is ‘pretty much out of the woods’ when it comes to the impact of demonetisation on the economy, Mr. Panagariya said, “Re-monetisation has happened… We should see a good turnaround in the first quarter (of 2017-18).”
•The contraction in the construction sector in the last quarter of 2016-17 could be due to many reasons including the war on black money that was the stated goal of demonetisation, he said.
•“Our main objective of demonetisation was to curb black money and prices of real estate have fallen by about 20%-25%, which in turn may have impacted construction activity,” he said.
•“Going forward, I expect growth to be 7.5 % in the current year and before the present term of the government ends, I expect we would hit 8% mark and probably enter another sustained growth trajectory of 8% plus by the time government completes its term,” Mr. Panagariya said, adding that the NDA had inherited a “rather fragile economy.”
•“I have studied the economic history of India… reforms do lead to accelerated growth but with a lag,” he said. “First, we had a major reform wave under PM Narasimha Rao, which was carried forward by PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee… some acceleration happened early on, but it was in 2003-04 that we got launched into this 8% growth trajectory,” he said, blaming mistakes in UPA’s second innings for slowing down the economy in 2012-13.
•“Now we are back in the process of reforms and I think governance is being addressed in a very intensive manner by the PM and the full impact of that is yet to be realised… In 2015-16, we already achieved 8% growth and average of the three years is already 7% plus, so it’s only 1 percentage extra we are talking about,” he said.
Book of jobs
•The government has begun compiling data from this April for a new annual employment survey to capture rural and urban job levels, with quarterly data on urban jobs, said Mr. Panagariya, terming all the debate about jobless growth as ‘misplaced’ as there is no credible aggregate data on employment.
•A task force on employment data headed by him has already met twice and will come up with an assessment in a few weeks, he said.
