may 2008 catalyst magazine

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CatalystFOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENTA PLATFORM FOR PEOPLE PROJECTS & PROGRESS

MAY2008

Vol No.1 Issue No.1

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ew


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TEAM 3

EDITOR: Dr Rao VBJ Chelikani

EDITORIAL TEAM

Dr. V Bhamy V ShenoyDr. Srinivas RaoMs. Nidhi Tiwari

Editorial Co-ordinator

Dr. Bharati KalasapudiMs. Sandhya RawalMr. Lakshman Kalasapudi

Mr. Ankit GuptaMs. Aparana DanielMs. Padmaja AyyagariMr. Rajesh Satyavolu

ADVISORY BOARD

Dr. Thomas AbrahamDr. Nirupam BajpaiDr. Suri SehgalMr. M. Chittaranjan

EDITORIAL BOARDDr. Abraham M. [email protected]

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Mr. Venkatesh [email protected]

Mr. Yogi [email protected]

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For all communication, contact:

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DISCLAIMER

Catalyst for Human Development,its Staff or Editor assume noresponsibility, directly or indirectly,for the views and opinionsexpressed by the authors as wellas for the pictures used in thearticles. Any omission of referenceto material from the Internet orother sources is unintentional.

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CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

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in turn, catalyze human development;

To provide a platform for all concerned withsustainable development to catalyze the process

of human development.

MISSION

CatalystFOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

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HIGHLIGHTS OF OCTOBER '06 ISSUE

N The Evolving Role of NGOs in

Poverty Alleviation

N Mann Deshi Sahakari Bank -

A boon for WomenN Catalyst Salutes Ashoka

Fellows

N Highway Rescue Project

N Magsaysay Award for Arvind

Kejriwal

N Best Visionaries Moving into

Citizen Sector

N SKOLL Foundation

Awards 2006

NWhy Do We Need Social Entrepreneurs ?

HIGHLIGHTS OF MARCH '07 ISSUE

N Safe Drinking water in

Villages

N Water Wars: National

Problems from aRegional Perspective

N Rain Centre in Chennai, India

N Get Real, Coke: Water Rights

Protest

N Promoting Effective Waste

Management: The Clean

Himalaya Initiative

N Water Bond For Safe

Drinking Water

HIGHLIGHTS OF JANUARY '08 ISSUE

N Science in Combating

Poverty

N Rural Indias Innovations

N Lead India: Choosing theFuture Leader of India

NMaking IVT work for the

Common Man

N ISRO in Human

Development

N Some Inconvenient

Questions for Indias NGO

Movement

HIGHLIGHTS OF JUNE '07 ISSUE

N Better Understanding of

Corporate Social Responsiblity

N CSR to Societys

Advantage or Corporates?

N 2007 CSR: Interesting

Revelations from a Survey

N Corporate Social

Responsibility: Two

Exemplary Corporations

N PMs Advice to Corporates

N Fall of an NGO Titan

N Biodiversity for

Development

HIGHLIGHTS OF OCTOBER '07 ISSUE

N Share and Care Foundation

N Excellence in Education

N One Acre Wonder

N An Experiment in Social

Entrepreneurship

N National Policy on

Voluntary Sector

N Who Can Fix Poverty?

N Sangopita: A Shelter for the

Care of Special Children

N Need for a New

Development Paradigm

N Learning Journey

N Choosing the Type of NPOs

N NGOs for Development

HIGHLIGHTS OF JANUARY '07 ISSUE

N Non-Resident Indians'

contributions - Answering

a Call to Action

N Eliminating Elephantiasis and

Waterborne Diseases

N Association for India's

Development - Improving

Literacy in Rural India

N Leading India toward Millenni-

um Development Goals

N How NRIs Can Help in Poverty

Alleviation

N Is Mega Philanthropy Going to Make a Difference?

N Nobel Peace Prize 2006 - Muhammad Yunus

N Indian National Development Congress

CatalystFORHUMANDEVELOPMENT

HIGHLIGHTS OF EARLIER ISSUES OF New


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CONTENTS6CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Editorial Dr. Rao VBJ Chelikani...8

Microcredit, NGOs and

Poverty Alleviation Mritiunjoy Mohanty...20, 21

Demystifying Solutions to

Global Poverty Crisis

Vandana Shiva ...22 to 24

Hans Rosling, the Technology

Innovator

Lakshman Kalasapudi...29

Wealth and Poverty ...30

Is Indias Prosperity Trickling

Down? Abraham M. George ...31

Doctored Poverty Estimates of

Planning Commission

Brinda Karat...32, 33

Poverty In India,

Some Unpalatable Facts ...34, 35

Indias Latest Budget Lacks a

New Direction ...36

The Truth About Poverty Abraham M. George ...37

Akshaya Patra The Torch Bearer

Madhu Sridhar...38, 39

Paheli ...40

NREGA Stakeholders

Come Together in Osmanabad Harsha ...41

Poverty Alleviation in

North East India Dipankar Chatterjee ...42, 43

Poverty Eradication, The Patna

Consensus N. K. Singh...44, 45

India Receives Rs. 2,585 Crore

EU Aid ...46

Indian NGO Wins Alcan

Sustainability Award Most Innovative Development

Project Award ...48

The New Dawn Of Solar ...49

Sampurn Nirman ... 50

Kagad Kach Patra

Kashtakari Panchayat ...51

The Sehgal

Foundation ...52

Banana Stem

Injector ...53

The Insect Trap ...54

Book Reviews ...56

Understanding

Poverty in India

Mari Marcel

Thekaekara

...9 to 15

UPA Govts

Schizophrenia

towards NREGA

Arun Roy, Jean Dreze

& Nikhil Dey

...16 to 18

Secure Lives First

Devabhaktuni Srikrishna...25, 26

Standup Against Poverty ...28 District Development Dr. Srinivasa Rao...58


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IN my opinion, we need to decide what we want toachieve before embarking on a mission or activity; inthe present case we need to be clear about who are our

target audience, what we want to convey, what is thecontent etc. Statistics can be used i) to make a point

which otherwise was obscure, ii) to give credence to aless known fact, iii) some times, to provide information

for quantitative remedial approaches.

If one end of the rod is red hot and the other is at liq-

uid helium temperature, can we say the average temper-ature is comfortable and we can handle the rod with

naked hands? Let us look at the "life expectancy". Sixdecades ago life expectancy in India was

30+, we all know that it does not mean thata person born during those days could expect

to live about 30 years; it is due to large num-ber of infant mortalities. It is a measure of"probability of survival" rather than the

"Longevity". Yes, other factors such as avail-ability of health care, genetic makeup etc, can

contribute to this number. People have used

these numbers in very inappropriate contexts.

Readers might draw two conclusions fromthe article: i) doing science in India is expensive. Or ii) sci-

entist in India are less efficient. Let us examine each. Costof equipment and chemicals is the same for all. Salary,

infrastructure maintenance, internet, telephone, medicalinsurance, services are much cheaper in India. So the cost

of doing science in India can not be high. Indians in othercountries do well and contribute to wealth / knowledgecreation, so Indian scientist are not less efficient.

The Indian science has not been product (patent) ori-

ented. In pre-independent India, the British did notencourage science; they wanted more of the clerical

staff. In fact they actively discouraged science. Scienceremained in the university departments with emphasis onbasic research. Outstanding scientist such Sheshadri,

Raman, GN Ramachnadran, SN Bose et al made signifi-cant contributions.

Dr. Ch Mohan Rao,

Deputy Director, CCMB, Hyderabad, India

Indian Scientists Are

Not Less Efficient

Why isnt The Barefoot

Movement Spreading?

BAREFOOT College, Tilonia is one of a kind institutiondesigned to impart functional literacy to marginally literaterural poor by training them to use traditional knowledge andmodern technology to bring communities into 21st century.Against numerous odds, over 30+ years of its existence it haseducated thousands of rural poor and used these skilled work-ers to develop basic infrastructure for electrifying 110 villages inWestern Rajasthan.

Barefoot College has incorporated some Gandhian ideas and

adopted a practice that is contradictory to Gandhian practices.Faced with certain challenges during 1977-79 it adopted aselectivity criterion ignoring Gandhiji's legacy of being inclusive

and thus failed to follow the middle path advocatedby Gautama Buddha. This essay highlights oneaspect of the college's unique accomplishments andone of its questionable practices.

I agree with philosophy that rural poor should behelped by empowering them with traditional knowl-edge and access to modern technology in a waythey can "learn by doing." The poor and lowestcaste/class people are not interested in charity. They

want to be empowered to take charge of theirdevelopment. They are willing to pay for and investtheir meager resources in what they learn to use.

Why isn't the Barefoot movement spreading across India? Askwhy Gandhi was able to but those of generation after Gandhiare unable to connect with most of India, impoverish or not?My answer is one word - inclusive. Unlike those practicing selec-tivity Gandhi succeeded because he was "inclusive"; he wel-comed all poor, rich, intellectuals, of any religion, followers ofany and all isms, all states, princely or not, etc. Developing600,000 rural villages is a Herculean task, and impossible toachieve, especially if the idea is not to be inclusive of all seg-ments of society, bureaucracy and the government. No fundingagency in the world exists that can fund for spread of the move-ment to all 600,000 villages in India. The challenge is to devel-op teamwork by unifying all segments of society, bureaucracyand government to make India a developed nation as soon aspossible and as fast as we can.

Dr. Kishan Bhatia,Quality Services Communications &

Planning Applications ,Katy, TX, USA

Letters to the Editor


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HISTORICALLY, the problem of poverty has been viewed, essentially, from the

individualistic, moralistic and altruistic point of view without challenging the social and economic struc-

tures that were ignorant of basic human rights. There have been, no doubt, periodic and episodic reliefworks carried out against aggressive poverty, while passive poverty remained a natural thing. Later, the 19th

century socialists deserve the credit of having questioned the systemic and structural causes and the 20th cen-tury communists, for having experimented to totally eliminate it, on a massive scale i.e. in several countries of

varied cultural backgrounds, through the instrumentality of a militant political party. Many welfare states endedas 'failed states'. And, we are still left with this most humiliating human phenomenon, called poverty, since ages.

In all the above efforts and by all the actors, we notice that the poor are only treated as inert objects or haplessvictims or virtuous beneficiaries. In the perverted democracies, the politicians are treating them as voters. Fr.

Joseph Wresinski, founder of the Fourth World International Movement proved that poverty is not a uni-dimen-sional problem. Does it explain the reason why the problem has become genetic, eluding any permanent solu-

tion ?

What is new to-day in the 21st century is that we are making several concerted, but not always sustainable,

efforts, as never before; the democratic governments, the civil society movements and institutions, including theprivate sector and the international organizations are acting from different angles to eradicate it altogether. So,

there is room for resolute optimism.

Do our governments have the political will and integrity to harness the irresistible trends of globalization-liber-alisation-privatisation in order to articulate an inclusive and equitable growth ? There are the information and

communication technologies (ICT) that are temptingly transforming the societies. More things are made acces-sible and at cheaper rates. There is evidence of increasing presence of NGOs, as one could see across the pagesof the present as well as the previous issues of our "Catalyst". But, they act, by their very nature, at the micro-

level with a diversity of approaches. They are only conscience-arisers of the society. The problem is with takingtheir results to scale. The intervention of the international organizations of the UN system like the World Bank

and the IMF is making substantial impact on our perception of the problem, on the methodologies and on thefinancial means to do it also. The Millennium Development Goals are the latest example. Among others, Amartya

Sen and Jeffrey Sachs have sensitized and developed new thinking and methodologies on the subject. Modernmanagement gurus like P.C. Prehlad have shown that even the poor could make a business sense for the cor-porate world, without the corporate social responsibility being the only way. Muhammad Yunus showed how

poor can be creditworthy and partners in social business. Insurances can prevent people from relapsing intopoverty. Yet, we have to hear more innovative proposals and experiments rather than expressions of indigna-

tion.

However, the controversies about the numbers and on the methods of identifying them demonstrate the inter-play of vested interests in either exaggerating or under-estimating the phenomenon. The partisans of liberaliza-tion wonder, if all are poor in the country, where does the 350 million middle class come from? Similarly, the

advocates of various policies also expose, indirectly, their unconfessed ideological commitments. Everybody rec-ognizes that the implementation measures, irrespective of the quality of the policies, are, nevertheless, mired in

bureaucratic inefficiency, political manipulations and official corruption, and often, lack transparency and

accountability.

Shorn of all moralistic and ideological prescriptions, the whole problem boils down to this: How to make maxi-

mum number of people to participate in wealth-creating activities, in their own interest as much as possible, inthe private sector, and to see, at the same time, how such wealth is increasingly shared by all the members ofthe society. It is a pragmatic process to diminish the percentage of the unemployed and the poor. Modern econ-

omy is neither capital-intensive nor labour-intensive but is management- intensive. A new economic cultureaccelerating economic and social changes is in the offing and the civil society has to see that a differently-demo-

cratic government supervises over it.Dr. Rao VBJ Chelikani

EDITORIALCATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

8


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TRYING to make sense of the varying figures on

poverty is a difficult business. Official estimatesthemselves differ. The Planning Commission, pro-

liberalisation and eager to bring down the number ofpoor in India, claims that just 19 per cent of our poor are

below the poverty line (BPL). Not so, says the NSS(National Sample Survey): it's 36 per cent based on con-sumer expenditure. In February 1997, the Government of

India rejected the Planning Commission figures and set-tled on 35 per cent as the official estimate of India's pop-

ulation below the poverty line. Howev-er, if we are to consider the Indian

Council of Medical Research (ICMR)1981 prescription that 2,400 calories are

needed for light work, 2,800 for moder-ate work and 3,900 calories for heavywork, then it is possible that the pover-

ty ratios are much higher.

The poverty debate has two sides. The

pro-liberalisation lobby states that eco-nomic growth brought about by the '90sliberalisation reforms has led to adecrease in poverty. The opposition states that so-called

economic growth has led to an inflated middle class andan elite which is wealthy beyond words, leaving the

poorest of the poor worse off than they were a decadeago. Both sides put forward convincing arguments to

support their case.

The Indian nation was born with the mission to eradi-

cate poverty and bring prosperity to its people. How farhave we succeeded ?

DEFINING POVERTY AND THE POVERTY LINE

Probably the first absolute definition of poverty was

that of Dandekar-Rath, who defined it as an expenditureof Rs 15 per capita per month for the Indian rural popu-

lation at 1960-61 prices, and Rs 18 per capita per monthfor the urban population.

The Government of India set up an Expert Group tosuggest a methodology to measure poverty. The group

submitted its report in 1993 and suggesteda new poverty line: Rs 49 and Rs 56, for

rural and urban areas at 1973-74 prices.This line was higher in real terms by

approximately 15 per cent.

Before getting into the growth and pover-

ty reduction debate, it is necessary to under-stand the mysterious thing called the pover-

ty line. The most widely used measure of

poverty in India was the 'head-count ratio'.This is a measure of income poverty. In theearly-'60s, the GOI appointed a special

working group of eminent economists to assess the level

of poverty in India. The experts came up with a definitionof the Poverty Line. This was based on a nationally desir-

able minimum level of consumption expenditure based ona standard balanced diet prescribed by the Nutrition Advi-

sory Committee. In other words, any family who couldnot afford to buy a rudimentary food basket, which whenconsumed yielded a minimum level of calories, was con-

sidered poor. They declared that 50 per cent of Indianslived below the poverty line. Thus began the war to push

this figure down to preserve the country's izzat (honour).

Understanding Poverty in IndiaMARI MARCEL THEKAEKARA

Poverty can only be alleviated if there is a redistribution of assets, an even and rapid spreadof healthcare and education, and the creation of sustainable livelihoods.

MARI MARCEL THEKAEKARA is founder-associate director of ACCORD, an organisation that works with thetribals of Gudalur, Tamil Nadu. She is a frequent contributor to The Hindu and Frontline and was a columnistfor New Internationalist, UK. Her articles have also appeared in the Economic and Political Weekly and otherleading publications. She is the author of Endless Filth, a book on the safai kamdars of Gujarat, published byBooks for Change. She was commissioned by the Directory of Social Change, UK , to do a study on povertyand development in the United Kingdom .

"When I see it I know it," aUS Supreme Court judge

once said cryptically aboutobscenity.

It is the same with poverty.Poverty is about the adivasi

starving in Bolangir orKalahandi, the widow of

an Andhra Pradeshweaver-driven to suicide,

the drought-stricken inRajasthan.

POLICY MATTERS 9CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT


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MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN POVERTY DEABTE

However, a poverty line thus defined is something of a

destitution line since it takes into account only the expen-

diture required for subsistence food, leaving out every-thing else needed for a minimally decent living, such asbasic housing, clothing, education and health services.

This has gained weight since Amartya Sen's Nobel Prize.Sen has finally succeeded in bringing into economics andthe poverty debate a modicum of moral philosophy,

which, until now, had been disregarded as non-scientificbecause it was stated by lesser luminaries.

Differences in methodologies and assumptions can lead

to quite different estimates. Until recently, for example,there were two sets of poverty line estimates for India

using the same criteria of minimum calorie requirements.

In 1993-94, according to the Planning Commission, only19 per cent of India's population was below the poverty

line. This was the 'official' estimate. Estimates based onconsumer expenditure surveys carried out regularly bythe National Sample Survey (NSS) Organisation, howev-

er, placed the proportion of India's population below thepoverty line at 36 per cent. In February 1997, the Gov-

ernment of India accepted the recommendations of theExpert Group on Estimation of Proportion and Number of

Poor (1993), which rejected the adjustments made bythe Planning Commission to arrive at estimates of pover-ty. As a result, the official estimate of India's population

below the poverty line was 35 per cent in 1993-94.

The head-count ratio is computed on the basis of NSSdata on consumption expenditure. People with an income

below the poverty line are 'poor' and the proportion of the

THE proportion of income poor in India has fluctuatedwidely in the past, but the trend is downward. Trendsin income poverty are far from uniform. They can be

roughly divided into three periods.

BETWEEN 1951 AND THE MID-1970s

Income poverty reduction shows no discernible trend. In

1951, 47 per cent of India's rural population was below

the poverty line. The proportion went up to 64 per cent in

1954-55; it came down to 45 per cent in 1960-61 but in

1977-78, it went up again to 51 per cent.

MID-1970s TO END-1980s

Income poverty declined significantly between the mid-

1970s and the end of the 1980s. The decline was more

pronounced between 1977-78 and 1986-87, with rural

income poverty declining from 51 per cent to 39 per cent.

It went down further to 34 per cent by 1989-90. Urban

income poverty went down from 41 per cent in 1977-78

to 34 per cent in 1986-87, and further to 33 per cent in

1989-90.

AFTER 1991

This is the post-economic reform period that has wit-

nessed progress and setbacks. Rural income povertyincreased from 34 per cent in 1989-90 to 43 per cent in

1992 and then fell to 37 per cent in 1993-94. Urban

income poverty went up from 33.4 per cent in 1989-90 to

33.7 per cent in 1992 and declined to 31 per cent in 1993-

94.

POVERTY IN 2001

It is ironic that an internationally envied IT industry

together with dish antennae and cyber cafes thrives in

India alongside hovels with no electricity, shameful litera-

cy figures, appalling malnutrition and maternal and child

mortality rates rivalled only by Bangladesh in South Asia.

Among the SAARC countries, India has the worst figures,with the exception of Bangladesh, in the status of under-

weight children under age five. In 1975, 71 per cent of

children were undernourished. From 1990-96, the figure

stood at 53 per cent. Compared to neighbouring countries

like China, these figures are atrocious. Only 26 per cent of

China's children were underweight in 1975, and in 1990-

96, the figure has come down to 16 per cent.

INCOME POVERTY OVER

THE DECADES

POLICY MATTERSCATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

10


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poor to the aggregate population is the head-count ratio.

Because of our alarming population rise, the absolutenumbers continue to spiral even while percentages reflecta downward trend. So, the poor doubled from 170 mil-

lion in 1951 to an estimated 340 million in 1994.

GENDER AND POVERTY

In the last decade and especially post-Beijing (1994), it

has been accepted that almost everywhere in the devel-oping world, women fare worse than men on most socialindicators. Because of sociological factors, a woman willfeed her husband first, then her kids and in a semi-star-

vation scenario, eat even less than the others in the fam-ily. A Gender-related Development Index (GDI) was

therefore formulated with several criteria to chart theprogress of women in the poverty scenario.

The Gender-related Development Index measuresachievements in the same dimensions and variables as

the Human Development Index (HDI), but capturesinequalities in achievement between women and men. It

is simply the HDI adjusted downward for gender inequal-ity. The greater the gender disparity in basic human

development, the lower a country's GDI compared withits HDI.

The Gender Empowerment Measure reveals whether

women can take active part in economic and politicallife. It focuses on participation, measuring gender

inequality in key areas of economic and political partici-pation and decision-making. It tracks the percentage of

women in parliament, among administrators and man-

THE definition of 'poor' varies from country to country.In 1994 my husband and I were invited to do apoverty study in the UK. We visited Easterhouse, in Glas-

gow, Scotland. This was considered one of the worst

slums of Europe. Everyone had an assured house, with

gas or electric stove, refrigerator, TV, and hot and coldrunning water. This was above average lower-middle

class Indian standards. In India, of our famous one billion

people, 350-400 million are below the poverty line.

There are not many poor people who earn more than a

dollar a day. This figure means nothing because poverty

is comparative.

Poverty is hunger in India. Real hunger. Never having

even three basic meals a day. Poverty is lack of shelter. In

an urban area it might be fear of a slumlord. In a rural area

it could be a creditor, the forest department waiting to

evict you, or an alcoholic husband signing away the one

fragment of land you live on, to drink his last drink. Pover-ty is being sick and not being able to afford a doctor.

Poverty is not being able to send your child to school and

not being able to read. Poverty is not having a job and

insecurity and fear about the future. Poverty is watching

your child die a senseless, needless death from malnutri-

tion or diarrhoea brought on by unsafe drinking water.

Poverty is powerlessness, lack of representation and lack

of freedom.

Who Are The Real Poor?



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agers and among professional and technical workers --and women's earned income share as a percentage ofmen's. Differing from the GDI, it exposes inequality in

opportunities in selected areas.

Here is what the UNDP report has to say: "A compu-tation of the Gender-related Development Index (GDI)

for Indian states reveals not only the low levels of humandevelopment and the extent of gender inequalities with-in India, but more importantly, it provides a measure of

how badly Indian states are doing vis--vis other nationsof the world. At the top of the list of Indian states is Ker-

ala with a GDI value of 0.597. Uttar Pradesh is at thebottom with a GDI value of 0.310. Looked at different-

ly, the GDI value for Uttar Pradesh is only half that ofKerala. There are only 13 countries in the world withlower GDI values than Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Twice as

many people live in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar (combinedpopulation of 225 million in 1991) in such abysmal con-

ditions of human deprivation than in the 13 countriesthat had lower GDI values."

AK Shiva Kumar points out (Getting Priorities

Right) that the link is never automatic. Between

1950 and the mid-1970s, despite a decent

growth there was no consistent drop in poverty. Thereason was that all government efforts went into build-

ing up heavy industry and public enterprises rather than

micro industry where the bulk of the poor are

employed. In the '90s scenario, there is the same mis-

take: MNCs promise growth and employment opportu-

nities, and this is implicitly believed by almost everyone.

Yet they achieve profits by downsizing the labour force.

The Green Revolution did not benefit the poor

because abundance did not imply equitable or even

half-decent distribution. Orissa's poor in Kalahandi and

Bolangir suffer from chronic starvation as floods one

season followed by drought the next leave them help-less. Bhubaneshwar might have overflowing godowns

but the poor in Orissa starve all the same. We have cen-

tres of excellence comparable to the best in the world,

but not primary education for all. Kerala, despite slow

economic growth, has achieved poverty reduction by

education for all and by political activism that curbed

rampant exploitation. There are a number of unex-

plained controversies in the positions of the pro-reform

groups. Since Amartya Sen's Nobel Prize, no one dares

differ from his view that investments in social sectors,

health, education and combating malnutrition are nec-

essary for the well-being of any society.

These, concede the economists, are investments in

society that will pay off economically in the future.

However, there are inherent contradictions. With the

liberalisation package came conditionalities that affect

the little benefits the poor had, which trickled down to

them because our Constitution declared India a welfare

state in the Nehruvian, socialist mode.

The gaps were always there. Till the last decade,

however, in Planning circles there at least appeared to

be an attempt to bridge the gaps -- a concern for the

poor. Now, that is left to 'market forces'. Starting with

the Five-Year Plans, now in their Ninth avatar, to theregular slogans of Garibi Hatao and 20-Point Pro-

grammes, the concern was articulated, spelt out in

translatable plans of action, because it would have been

unthinkable not to do so. That was the considered

business of government. Now, poverty reduction

appears pass, something each government has to talk

about at least in passing before moving on to the real

business of the day, which is attracting foreign invest-

ment.

WHY THINGS HAVEN'T CHANGED?


12


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Sri Venkateswara Pranadana Trust aims at providing free

medical facilities to poor patients afflicted with life threatening

diseases related to the heart, kidneys, brain, cancer etc. for

which the treatment is expensive.

The scheme also proposes to encourage research and

development in the treatment of diseases like chronic renal

failure, hemophilia, thalassamia and cancer. Basic amenities

including blood-bank, artificial limbs, physiotherapy, tools and

implants will be provided to poor patients, free of cost.

This scheme will be applicable to all poor patients,

irrespective of caste, creed or religion. Treatment will be

provided at all Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams-run Sri

Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences (SVIMS), Sri BalajiInstitute of Surgery, Research and Rehabilitation for the

Disabled Trust (BIRRD), Sri Venkateswara Ramnarayana Ruia

Hospital (SVRR) and the Maternity Hospital.

TO MAKE THE TRUST SELF-SUFFICIENT,

TTD WILL INVEST AN AMOUNT EQUAL TO EACH

DONATION COLLECTED BY THE TRUST.

DONATION AMOUNT

The minimum contribution for the scheme is Rs. 1000/-.

Donation amount sent below Rs.1000/- will be credited

to the account of Srivari Hundi without anyintimation to the Donor.

All donations are deposited in a Nationalized Bank

and the interest earned is utilized for the scheme.

Donations can be made by way of Cheque/Demand Draft

on any Scheduled Bank drawn in favour of the

Executive Officer, Sri S.V.Pranadana Trust, TTD, Tirupati

and can be sent to the Chief Accounts Officer, TTD, Tirupati,

(Pincode) - 517501,

Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh, India.

INDIVIDUALS, FIRMS, COMPANIES ETC.

CAN MAKE DONATIONS AND

THEY ARE ELIGIBLE FOR INCOME TAX

BENEFIT UNDER SECTION 80(G) OF

THE INDIAN INCOME TAX ACT.

For further information, please contact

0877-2277777 or 0872-2233333

SAVE LIFE AND DONATE LIBERALLY

FOR PRANADANA TRUST

A serene setting for healing hands -Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical

Sciences(SVIMS), Tirupati.

Blessed by the Lord - Bhaskar, a 11year old patient treated for Cyanotic

Congenital Heart disease at SVIMS,Tirupati.

The best technology put to the best ofcauses-Cath Lab at SVIMS.

Deft hands, keen minds - A state-of-theartOperation Theatre at SVIMS

When God wills the undoing of misery- polio patients wait for surgical

correction at BIRRD, Tirupati

SRI VENKATESWARA PRANADANA TRUST

MEDICAL FACILITIES


14/60

INDIAN STATES: CONTRASTS INPOVERTY LEVELS

We remain a country of unbelievable contrasts. Assessinglevels of income poverty over time and across states is notan easy task. Estimates show that in 1993-94, all the peo-

ple in the states of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh livedabove the poverty line, whereas in Bihar, 58 per cent of thepopulation lived under the poverty line. While 1.9 million

people in Punjab came under the category of income poor,Uttar Pradesh had 50.4 million people in this category. From

1973-74 to 1993-94, there has been a decline from 17.8million to 8.1 million in the number of income poor in

Andhra Pradesh. In Assam, the number has gone up from7.6 million to 12.8 million, and in Bihar, from 33.7 million to46.1 million.

Disparities exist between and within communities in India.

For instance, communities classified as Scheduled Castesand Scheduled Tribes have significantly lower literacy and

higher child mortality rates than the rest of the population.

Of our 350 to 400 million poor, roughly 75 per cent livein the rural areas. Of these 75 per cent, the worst-off arewomen, children, adivasis and dalits.

REFORMS AND STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT

In the '90s, with foreign exchange reserves exhausted,India went with a begging bowl and pawned its gold to the

World Bank and IMF. Conditionalities were slapped on usurging liberalisation, privatisation and structural adjust-

ment. Translated, this meant the country was to reverseyears of socialist, pro-poor policies, cut subsidies to farmers

for agriculture even while the US and EU pay their farmersto keep their fields fallow to prevent a glut of produce. We

were forced to cut food or public distribution subsidies forstaples like rice and wheat for the poor. MNCs were to bewelcomed with open arms and we were forced to offer

them hidden subsidies while cutting back on ration rice forthe poor. But we needed foreign investment (read dollars)

to pay back our loans.

Proponents of the liberalisation creed point out that therehas been unprecedented growth which, they claim, leadsinevitably to poverty reduction. This, even though the

'trickle-down' theory had long been discarded. Dr Surjit SBhalla insists with his sets of data that structural adjustment

has led to growth that equals poverty reduction and dis-counts the theory that the poor have not shared in the

growth.

POVERTY ERADICATION BY 2005?

Immediately after Independence, the GOI began inearnest the fight against poverty, largely based on the

Russian model, greatly admired by Pandit Nehru. Thus

began a series of Five-Year Development Plans, formulat-ed by a set of handpicked Planning Experts and now inthe Ninth series. Successive governments have come outwith schemes, albeit populist, such as the Garibi Hatao

(Eradicate Poverty) of Indira Gandhi, followed by a Ten-Point programme, followed by numerous less known

ones. The main problem has always been implementa-tion. Successive Prime Ministers have deplored the fact

that for every rupee released, hardly ten paise reaches thepoor. Basic agrarian reforms and land distribution, thecrux of the problem, did not take place except in Kerala

and to some extent in West Bengal. Unless the problemof the vast numbers of landless, exploited people is

solved, band-aid solutions will not work. Additionally,India needs to address the enormous exploitation of the

poor that takes place aided by caste and class, whichkeeps the poor in feudal bondage.

In 1996, the United Front national governmentannounced a definite poverty goal for the country: pover-

ty eradication by the year 2005. According to the primeminister, "Programmes for generation of employment,

creation of assets, imparting of productive skills and rais-


14


15/60

ing the incomes of the very poor people would all bestrengthened and provided with larger funds. At thesame time, there is need to review these programmes,

sharpen their focus, improve their delivery system and

involve the poor in their implementation. Effective stepswill be taken to ensure that the benefits reach the needypeople."

According to Government of India, success in eradicat-ing poverty will be contingent upon three factors: (a) a

GDP growth rate of at least 6 per cent per annum overthe next 10 years (b) provisioning of at least seven basic

minimum services -- universal access to safe drinkingwater, 100 per cent coverage of primary healthcare cen-

tres, universalisation of primary education, public housingassurance to all shelterless deserving families, extensionof the mid-day meal scheme throughout all primary

schools, road connectivity to all villages and habitations,and streamlining the public distribution system targeted

to families below the income poverty line (c) ensuringthat the income poor and the socially disadvantaged

groups receive special attention and priority.

WHERE HAVE WE FAILED?

We are preoccupied with the symptoms of poverty

while the causes continue to be largely ignored. This isbecause we measure and understand poverty in eco-

nomic and not human and social or political terms. To

accept that pure economic growth through marketreform will reduce poverty is to accept that the State hasno role to play. That the economic process supercedes apolitical process. That the market is superior to State

sovereignty.

Perhaps the time has come to recognise once againwhat history has proved -- that true and lasting change,

even an economic one, is brought about through a polit-ical process and not the other way around.

From the time of Independence, it was recognisedthat land reform was necessary if economic and social

change, real change, was to take place. However, withthe exception of Kerala and West Bengal, few states

bothered to implement land reforms. This exacerbatescomplex social problems linked to economic ones. Forexample, it is difficult to break the stranglehold of

bonded labour, caste shackles etc because the people inbondage work under feudal conditions for landlords

who are their only potential employers. Where land dis-tribution has taken place, social reforms too have

occurred.

We have the most brilliant legislation in the world, we

have pro-poor policies spelt out in the most movingrhetoric. Yet, implementation of these plans and strate-gies was ignored, circumvented and in many cases delib-

erately prevented. There has to be the will to eradicatepoverty.

Things have changed. The fact that we have three

times more primary schools and primary health centres isa sign of hope. We have eradicated smallpox. We havea Dalit President. CIPLA is offering competition to MNC

drug companies in the AIDS war. Every individual successstory is one step forward. We need to concentrate less

on meaningless figures and get on with fighting thegood fight.

Source: www.infochange.org



16/60

D

URING the last two years, we have been involved

in a series of NREGA-related activities (socialaudits, field surveys, training programmes, etc.) in

seven states: Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, HimachalPradesh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu.

Consistent with the secondary data available, we haveobserved a highly uneven picture of NREGA implementa-tion in different parts of the country. There are states and

districts where unprecedented amounts of employmenthave been generated, and the Act has shown its ability to

be a new lifeline for rural communities.

For examples, in 2006-07, the NREGA generated as

many as 77 days of employment per rural household in

the six districts of Rajasthan where the Act applied. Inmany other states, employment is still quite limited, and

there are many procedural issues, as the recent draft CAGreport illustrates. Nevertheless, in all the states men-

tioned above we have observed that the enactment ofNREGA has initiated a paradigm shift in the standards ofimplementation of public works schemes.

For example, the Act has made it possible to confront a

range of exploitative practices such as the non-paymentof minimum wages, chronic delays in wage payments,

the use of labour displacing machines, and the illegal

UPA Govt's Schizophrenia

Towards NREGAARUNA ROY, JEAN DREZE & NIKHIL DEY

The extension of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) to the entirecountry is one of the most ambitious development programmes in the world,

set to embark soon on a decisive new phase.


16


17/60

contractor system. Further, NREGA has started settingnew standards of transparency of accountability, enablingpeople to fight corruption not only in public works

schemes, but also - potentially - in other development

programmes. It is this broad trend of positive change thatgives hope in the possibility of implementing the Act inletter and spirit across the country.

NEW CHALLENGES

Having said this, the forthcoming extension of theNREGA presents new challenges, and there is a risk that

it might boomerang unless adequate preparations aremade to face them. That, indeed, is the real message of

the draft CAG report, widely misrepresented in the mediaas an indictment of the Act. The experience of the lasttwo years needs to be understood and built upon to

ensure the success of this "new phase" of the programme.

According to official data, the NREGA was employingnearly three million workers on an average day in 2006-

07 (when the Act was in force in 200 districts). As the Actis extended to the whole of rural India, this could rise to

10 million or so - the largest public works programmeever. These numbers need corresponding support struc-tures, especially as the NREGA is a law that creates legal

responsibilities to deliver. For instance, the financial allo-cation for administrative expenses urgently needs to be

raised from the present, meagre 4 per cent to 6 per cent

at the very least. However, it is not just a question offinancial resources. Adequate administrative, legal, tech-nical and institutional support structures are also essen-

tial. In their absence, there are likely to be multiple fail-

ures in the delivery system, and these will be invokedonce again to argue against the Act itself.

SUSTAINED ATTENTION REQUIRED

This challenge, however, can be turned into an

opportunity. The success of the NREGA depends onsustained attention to details of a range of practical

arrangements, such as the distribution of job cards,work application procedures, technical planning,

worksite management, staff training, record-keeping,social audits and much more. This could be done in acreative manner, where systems are put into place

supported by the pool of resources and skills availableat the local level. For instance, recent experiments in

Rajasthan have shown that the shortage of technicalstaff can be overcome by creating a cadre of trained

worksite supervisors drawn from the community. Thiscould lead to major improvements in worksite man-

agement without having to set up a new bureaucracy.Similarly, creative use of the Gram Rozgar Sevak (theNREGA assistant at the panchayat level) could go a

long way in ensuring sound record-keeping as well asstrict implementation of the transparency

safeguards.



18/60

The state governments have a crucial role to play in theprocess of preparing for this new phase of NREGA.Recent experience shows that where state governments

have taken active interest in the Act, wide-ranging initia-

tives have emerged, making it possible to provide workand create productive assets on a massive scale. Howev-er, many states continue to have a casual attitude

towards the Act. This is startling as 90 per cent of theexpenditure is borne by the Centre. The state govern-ments have never had such a good opportunity to pursue

rural development goals without having to worry aboutthe financial burden.

The Centre, for its part,

has a mandate to ensurethat all rural households areable to exercise their right to

employment under the Act.It can perform both regula-

tory and constructive roles inthis regard. The regulatory

role involves framing theguidelines and rules that

flesh out the responsibilitiesof states. The constructiveroles are potentially wide-

ranging. Aside from provid-ing adequate funds, they

include developing commu-

nication and training tools,putting in place record-keeping systems, providingtechnical resources, facilitat-

ing mutual learning betweenstates, conducting or spon-

soring evaluation studies,monitoring the implementa-

tion of the Act guidelines,and so on.

The Central Employment Guarantee Council (CEGC)was expected to facilitate many of these roles. Unfortu-

nately, it has been kept on 'standby' mode most of thetime during the last two years. Recent CEGC delegations

to Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh havebeen very productive, and demonstrate the scope for fur-

ther initiatives of this kind, as well as for activating thecouncil in other ways.

NREGA NEEDS EXPANSION

By default, the immense burden of overseeing this

'flagship programme' rests on the frail shoulders of a

small team of overworked civil servants at the Ministry ofRural Development. This crucial support base of NREGAneeds to be expanded into a full-fledged 'Employment

Guarantee Mission', with strong political mandate and afull secretariat.

But ultimately, what needs to be activated most of all isthe political leadership. The NREGA presents unique pos-

sibilities for grassroots political mobilisation and organisa-tional work. This opportu-

nity exists for both rulingparties and oppositiongroups. It is a telling com-

mentary on the state ofIndian democracy that,

with few exceptions,political parties across the

spectrum have so farfailed to seize this oppor-

tunity.

This point applies even

to the parties that tookthe initiative of enacting

the NREGA. In fact, there

is a schizophrenia aboutthe attitude of the UPAtowards the Act. On theone hand, political leaders

parade NREGA as one ofthe main achievements of

this government (thePrime Minister himself

described it as "historicand revolutionary"). Onthe other hand, the gov-

ernment is doing far too little to face the organisationalchallenges involved in ensuring that the Act achieves its

potential. Hopefully, the extension of the NREGA willprovide an opportunity to correct this bias. Let it not be

said, a few years from now, that this extension took placeappropriately on April Fools' Day.

(Source: January 31, 2008,Hindustan Times)


18

Aruna Roy and Jean Drze have been involved in social audits and field surveys of the NREGA since itsinception as members of the Central Employment Guarantee Council.


19/60


20/60


20

THE MICROCREDIT movement,

of which Muhammad Yunusand the Grameen Bank have

been leading pioneers, makes two

important contributions to develop-ment practice: first to demonstrate

that creditworthiness and collateraldo not go hand in hand and, there-

fore, it is possible to delink the two;and secondly, it is possible to use a

collectivist ethos and group solidarity (and implicit joint lia-bility) to minimise the risk of loans being made to personswith high-risk propositions (adverse selection) or of their

being utilised for purposes other than that for which theyare contracted (moral hazard), and to use peer pressure to

ensure that repayment

schedules are met.

Therefore, it has established that lending to the poor whohave little collateral, their labour being a viable practice;

providing even a modicum of access to financial resources,lowering under-employment of labour and diversifying

their sources of income generation, makes a difference tothe ability of poor households to cope with some kinds of

adverse shocks; and that for very poor households this

additional income and diversification

are a precious buffer in remainingout of poverty.

IMPACT ON WOMEN

Perhaps an unintended conse-quence of the microcredit move-

ment, which, for practical reasons,was designed to be delivered

through women's groups, has been its impact on the status

of women. In Bangladesh, in particular, and in other coun-tries where microcredit has been successful, it has given

poor women, particularly in rural areas, a sense of agencythey lacked before.

However, it is equally important to note that whereasaccess to microcredit serves as a useful complement to thesurvival strategies of poor households, it is not a strategy ofpoverty alleviation and growth. When it comes to sustained

growth and poverty alleviation, its main strength - smallloans made available for relatively short periods of time

with tight repayment cycles - becomes its main weakness.Microcredit loans are simply too small to make a difference

in terms of sustained growth and poverty alleviation.

Microcredit, NGOs and

Poverty AlleviationMRITIUNJOY MOHANTY

While access to microcredit serves as a useful complement to the survival strategies of poorhouseholds, it is not a strategy of poverty alleviation and growth.

MRITIUNJOY MOHANTY is anAssistant Professor of Economics at theIndian Institute of Management in

Kolkata. He is currently associated withInstitute d'tudes internationales deMontral (IEIM) of the Universit duQubec Montral (UQAM),Montreal, Canada

When Indira Gandhi attended the UN World EnvironmentalConference in Stockholm in 1972, she asked the question: Are not

poverty and needs the greatest polluters? However, when this wasquoted in various articles, it got converted into a positive statement:"Poverty is the greatest polluter". Consequently, Indira initiated a

global debate on the relationship between poverty, economicgrowth, ecology and environment. No sooner, there was arealization that there is only one earth and global actionsmust be taken to combat pollution.

POVERTY VIEWPOINT

Indira Gandhi


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'LIVELIHOOD FINANCE'

As Vijay Mahajan of BASIX, one of the pioneers of

India's microcredit movement, has noted, "microcredit

pales into insignificance as a "solution" for poverty allevi-ation and promotion of livelihoods" Economic and Politi-cal Weekly, October 8, 2005). This is because poverty

alleviation and sustained increases in income-generatingcapabilities have to do with accumulation of assets -physical, financial or human.

If microcredit loans are too small to make a dent in

poverty alleviation and growth, it is not as if it is a strat-egy that comes cheap either. Indeed, it is now widely

accepted in development finance circles that in both

absolute and relative terms the rates of interest (in nom-

inal and effective terms - they were 15 and 30 per centin Bangladesh in 2004, and in India the nominal interest

is around 24 per cent) charged on microcredit loansare very high.

OTHER NGOs ROLE

This is to say that in the context of generating employ-ment, sustainable livelihoods and the fight against pover-

ty, microcredit is a palliative and not a panacea that mul-tilateral agencies, international development NGOs and

donor governments would make it seem.

Be that as it may, as we join the Nobel Committee innoting the pioneering work done by Mr. Yunus and the

Grameen Bank, it is worth recording that neither is the

only pioneer in Bangladesh in providing the poor with amodicum of access to financial resources. There are otherNGOs that have walked, struggled and prospered down

the same path, most famously Grameen's contemporaryfrom the 1970s, the Bangladesh Rural AdvancementCommittee or BRAC.

If Bangladesh has moved from being an internationalbasket case to a resilient economy, capable of coping

with adverse environments and slowly but steadily climb-ing the human development ladder, some credit should

go to its myriad NGO sector.

If the NGO sector ingeneral has played asalient role as a delivery

mechanism for publicgoods in the Bangladeshi

context, it has raisedimportant questions as

well for both the countryand development strate-gy. How sustainable

(except for the super-large ones like BRAC and

Grameen) is NGO inter-

vention without interna-tional donor support?Are the NGOs to be seenpurely as delivery mecha-

nisms or are they vehiclesof accumulation

as well? Does NGOintervention shape in

some ways the accumu-lation process? In the

context of democratic political and economic governance

structures how accountable are they? And if they are,who are they accountable to? Is NGO intervention in

Bangladesh a particular response to a particular situationor are there generalisable aspects? And if there are, how

cost-effective are these?

These are questions Bangladesh is slowly beginning toask itself. Other economies and societies would do well toask themselves the questions before emulating either the

microcredit strategy or the NGO strategy or bothunquestioningly. As the adage goes, only fools rush in

where angels fear to tread .



22/60

GLOBAL poverty is a hot topic right now. But anyoneserious about ending it needs to understand the

true causes, argues Indian environmentalist Van-dana Shiva.From rock singer Bob Geldof to UK politicianGordon Brown, the world suddenly seems to be full of

high-profile people with their own plans to end poverty.

Jeffrey Sachs, however, is not simply a do-gooder butone of the world's leading economists, head of the Earth

Institute and in charge of a UN panel set up to promoterapid development. So when he

launched his book "The End ofPoverty", people everywhere tooknotice. Time magazine even made

it into a cover story. But, there is aproblem with Sachs' how-to-end

poverty prescriptions. He simply

doesn't understand where povertycomes from. He seems to view it asthe original sin. "A few generationsago, almost everybody was poor,"

he writes, adding: "The IndustrialRevolution led to new riches, but

much of the world was left farbehind."

FALSE HISTORY

This is a totally false history of poverty. The poor arenot those who have been "left behind"; they are the ones

who have been robbed. The wealth accumulated byEurope and North America are largely based on riches

taken from Asia, Africa and Latin America. Without thedestruction of India's rich textile industry, without thetakeover of the spice trade, without the genocide of the

native American tribes, without African slavery, theIndustrial Revolution would not have resulted in new

riches for Europe or North America. It was this violenttakeover of Third World resources and markets that cre-

ated wealth in the North and poverty in the South.

Two of the great economic myths of our time allowpeople to deny this intimate link, and spread misconcep-

tions about what poverty is. First, the destruction ofnature and of people's ability to look after themselves areblamed not on industrial growth and economic colonial-

ism, but on poor people themselves.

The second myth is an assumption that if you consumewhat you produce, you do not really produce, at least not

economically speaking. People are perceived as "poor" ifthey eat food they have grown

rather than commercially distribut-ed junk foods sold by global agri-business. They are seen as poor if

they live in self-built housing madefrom ecologically well-adapted

materials like bamboo and mud

rather than in cinder block orcement houses and if they weargarments manufactured fromhandmade natural fibres rather

than synthetics.

The false distinction between thefactors that create affluence and

those that create poverty is at thecore of Sachs' analysis. And because of this, his prescrip-tions will aggravate and deepen poverty instead of end-

ing it. Modern concepts of economic development,which Sachs sees as the "cure" for poverty, have been in

place for only a tiny portion of human history.

ONE-SIDED DEVELOPMENT DESTRUCTIVE

A system like the economic growth model we know

today creates trillions of dollars of super profits for corpo-rations while condemning billions of people to poverty.

Poverty is not, as Sachs suggests, an initial state of humanprogress from which to escape. It is a final state people

fall into when one-sided development destroys the eco-

Demystifying Solutions

to Global Poverty CrisisVANDANA SHIVA

"If we are serious about ending poverty, we have to be serious about ending the systems thatcreate poverty by robbing the poor of their common wealth, livelihoods and incomes."

Dr. Vandana Shiva is a physicist andprominent Indian environmental

activist. She founded Navdanya, amovement for biodiversity

conservation and farmers' rights. She

directs the Research Foundation forScience, Technology and Natural

Resource Policy. Her most recentbooks are Biopiracy: The Plunder of

Nature and Knowledge and StolenHarvest: The Hijacking of the

Global Food Supply.


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23/60

ARE NA Animation - Kukatpally offers Special Discount for Members ofGlobal Angels Jai Charitable Trust to promote Animation among Rural Youth

This issues cover page is prepared by ARENA, Kukatpally team * Conditions Apply


24/60

logical and social systems that have maintained the life,health and sustenance of people and the planet for ages.

The reality is that people do not die for lack of income.

They die for lack of access to the wealth of the commons.Here, too, Sachs is wrong when he says: "In a world ofplenty, 1 billion people are so poor their lives are in dan-

ger." The indigenous people in the Amazon, the mountaincommunities in the Himalayas, peasants anywhere whoseland has not been appropriated and whose water and

biodiversity have not been destroyed by debt-creatingindustrial agriculture are ecologically rich, even though

they earn less than a dollar a day.

On the other hand, people are poor if they have to pur-chase their basic needs at high prices no matter howmuch income they make. Take the case of India. Because

of cheap food and fibre being dumped by developednations and lessened trade protections enacted by the

government, farm prices in India are tumbling, which

means that the country's peasants are losing $26 billioneach year. Unable to survive under these new economicconditions, many peasants are now poverty-stricken and

thousands commit suicide each year.

Elsewhere in the world, drinking water is privatised sothat corporations can now profit to the tune of $1 trillion

a year by selling an essential resource to the poor thatwas once free. And the $50 billion of "aid" trickling Northto South is but a tenth of the $500 billion being sucked

in the other direction due to interest payments and otherunjust mechanisms in the global economy imposed by

the World Bank and the IMF.

(Taken and adapted with permission from TheEcologist (July/August 2005), a British monthly

devoted to discussion of environmental issues,international politics and globalization)

For more information contact

[email protected], www.theecologist.org

INDIA must temper its triumphant mood and work harder to

battle poverty, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh said, urgingthe nation, however, not to be overconfident.

Once poverty-stricken, India has been transformed by the pastdecade's economic boom into a burgeoning world power whose

wealth can be seen everywhere: New cars cruise the streets,high-end apartment blocks are rising on the edges of cities, lux-ury shops fill the seemingly endless supply of new shopping malls,he said and added: "But the inequality in this country of 1.1 bil-lion people is as often as conspicuous as the consumption - Indi-an children are more likely to be malnourished than African onesand the country is home to about a third of the people in the worldliving on less than $ 1 a day.

India cannot become a nation with islands of high growth and vast areas untouched by development, where the benefits ofgrowth accrue only to a few, Dr. Singh told the nation in his tra-ditional Independence Day speech. We have moved forward in

the many battles against poverty, ignorance and disease. But canwe say we have won the war? he asked.

(60th Anniversary Independence Day speech)

POVERTY VIEWPOINT

Dr. Manmohan SinghPrime Minister


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MOST of India's population lives in villages, and 450

million people live on less than roughly $1.50 per

day. What is India doing for the children who grow

up in these $1.50 per day environments, because literally

they are the future of India?

Human security is the least common denominator needed

to offer freedom, security, and socio-economic opportunity

to people - which is the opposite of

poverty. Rural Indians need to tap into

new markets to raise their annual eco-

nomic output into the trillions. Finding

ways to diversify beyond agriculture

may be the only way to improve pur-

chasing power to $10/day and beyond,

because the total agricultural market is

top limited to perhaps $100 or $200 bil-

lion.

Dr. Anirudh Krishna has shown that

several commonly held assumptions

about rural India are wrong. He surveys

thousands of families in 36 villages in

each of Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, and

Gujurat in which poverty rates are 25-

65%. The most common pattern for

60-80% of villagers who fell into

poverty was inability to afford the

heavy costs for health care in chronic and life threatening ill-

nesses, costs of social functions like death ceremonies and

marriage functions, which in turn leads these families to take

on high interest rate debt from local loan sharks (3% permonth). Factors like laziness/drunkenness were identified in

single digit percentages and not a major factor.

DIVERSIFY INCOME SOURCES

The way families have risen and managed to stay out of

poverty is simple: making more money by getting out of

agriculture and diversifying their income sources so they can

afford health care, education, support a family/social life,

get a roof over their head, and repay their debt. They have

done this by getting a better job in a city or accessing a new

urban market through a contact/friend, farming very differ-

ent more profitable crops, or getting a government job. Pri-

mary education played a minor role compared to other fac-

tors. Urban migration might work for a small fraction of vil-

lagers, and will not scale if 700 million rural Indians have to

flood the Indian cities to get jobs - it would be like Mexican

migrant labor finding jobs in the US and

sending money back home. If people

can find ways to make enough money,

they will pay for all that they need.

Using the Internet Google, EBay, and

Amazon are enabling small businesses

in the US to gain access to niche mar-

kets they couldn't otherwise reach

before by equalizing and reducing dis-

tribution costs - known as the Long Tailphenomenon. Business and jobs need

to be created locally for the rural Indian

economy to grow. Offhand examples of

local niche markets include electrical

repair work, ads for

doctors/hospitals/specialists, tractor

repair needs, water purification, dra-

mas/skits/performances, new

shop/business openings, bicycles for

sale, animal care, and so forth. The list is diverse, unpre-

dictable, and long-tail.

A CRAIG'S LIST FOR EVERY INDIAN REGION,CITY, TOWN, AND VILLAGE

What would happen to the cost of distribution in India if a

free information network/service/billboard was made acces-

sible to Indians, modeled after Craig's list's classified ads?

1. Searchable at all geographic levels: Every state, district,

city, town, village or within a fixed radius of the user's

location (like 50 miles)

Secure Lives FirstDEVABHAKTUNI SRIKRISHNA

Tapping into larger markets is the need of the hour if rural poverty in India is to be tackled andhuman security achieved as agriculture market is limited to $100 billion or $200 billion

annually and crop yields are at the mercy of the fluctuating weather.


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2. Accessible in multiple interfaces including web-based and

cell phones to the extent possible, and in local vernacular

(hindi, telugu, etc).

3. Categories customized and extsnsible to both agricultural,

urban, and non-agricultural indian markets - crop prices,

labor needs, equipment leases, services, etc.?

Internet/web terminal penetration will remain much lower

than cell phones for the foreseeable future. Internet kiosks

are mostly limited to larger population centers, but still with-

in a day's travel reach of most villagers (at least to district

headquarters). Cell phones can reach a larger audience any-

where in the villages on a daily basis, and this can be com-

bined with less frequent access to kiosks in larger centers. In

the absence of credit cards and credit histories, mobile bank-

ing may enable these 450 million people to participate in

online transactions.

An online service for villagers to input classified ads via the

web and browse/search them the same way (like Craig's list)

keeps it simple to setup/operate, and easier to focus on get-

ting the content right with categories tailored to rural econ-

omy's needs. As usage grows, a rural user could be given the

capability to subscribe to "alerts" on a cell phone (txt mes-

sage, voice mail), via an interactive voice interface on a cell

phone, or via the web itself at an Internet terminal. For

instance, a worker who is skilled in electrical work may want

to be notified by cell phone when an ad shows up within a

radius of 20 miles of his village. Once he gets a notification,

he can request more details on his cell phone or otherwise

check at the nearest Internet terminal to see more details of

the job requirements.

CONCLUSION

Rural poverty in India can be solved and human security

can be achieved in large scale, but clearly it is not going to

be solved the way we have been going about it historically.

Tapping into larger markets is required since the total India

market for agriculture is limited to perhaps $100B or $200B

annually and crop yields are at the mercy of weather,droughts, and so on. We need new information services

that can *connect* villagers to new local and regional niche

opportunities beyond agriculture.

http://www.devabhaktuni.us/research/humansecurity

http://www.amazon.com


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Mr Anbumani Ramdoss, Minister forHealth, Government of India, patting aSCOPES World Cycle Tour volunteer, amember of SCOPES anti-tobaccocampaign team


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OVER 43.7 million people, in 127 countries havebroken the Guinness World Record - set last year

at 23.5 million - for the largest number of peopleto "STAND UP AGAINST POVERTY" in 24 hours.

The "Stand Up and Speak Out" record

attempt took place over 16th and 17thOctober and was jointly organised bythe United Nations Millennium Cam-

paign (UNMC) and the Global Call toAction against Poverty (GCAP) with a

wide range of other partners. The challenge saw millionsof people physically and intentionally standing up against

poverty, inequality and in support of the MillenniumDevelopment Goals.

United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, who leda stand up action at UN Headquarters in New York, said

"Today tens of millions of people are making their voicesheard by standing up and speaking out against poverty

and for the Millennium Development Goals. They are

sending messages that call on their leaders to keep theirpromises. They are calling for the actions of citizens to bematched by the actions of Governments, in developingand developed countries alike, to demonstrate the politi-

cal will required to end the scourge of poverty once andfor all."

For 24 hours from 9pm GMT on the 16th of October

people around the world from all walks oflife came together in their schools,

streets, market places, in front of govern-ment buildings and local councils, in

workplaces and houses of worship, atsports and cultural events and at publiclandmarks to demonstrate their frustra-

tion that we still live in a world where 50,000 people diedaily from preventable causes.

COUNTRY HIGHLIGHTS

In India all over the country people of all ages werestanding up. In Madhya Pradesh, a state in central India,

five million people participated. DAV Schools, the largestpublic school system of the country, reported 500,000

voices against poverty and at Kashmir University, 35,000

students stood up. Also in Delhi, one of four Women'sTribunals on Poverty gathered 400 women from 20 statesto debate how gender exclusion and discriminationimpede development in poor countries.

Standup Against Poverty43.7 Million People break Guinness World Record for Stand Up Speak Out on

International Day for the Eradication of Poverty

MASS MOVEMENTCATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

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HANS Rosling is a man of many talents. Professor atthe Karolinska Institute in Sweden, Dr. Roslingcombines his many academic backgrounds to

address global poverty and related pertinent issues. Afterstudying medicine and statistics at Uppsala University inSweden, he studied public health at St. John's MedicalCollege in Bangalore. However, he later went on to serve

as a District Medical Officer in Mozambique. There, Dr.Rosling discovered an out-break of a paralytic diseaseleading to a Ph.D. degreefrom Uppsala University.

After many years of workin Africa, he developed asense of the reality of globalpoverty. He set up Gapmin-der Inc. This not-for-profitventure wants to promotethe United Nations Millenni-

um Development Goals byincreased awareness ofstatistics and other raw data.True to its name, Gapminderhas closed the gap betweenthe possible and impossiblefor many not-for-profits andsocial entrepreneurs. Dr.Rosling realizes that there isa lot of raw data in the worlduseful to many who want tomake a difference and createchange. However, it is notalways conveniently accessi-

ble. Therefore, he createdGapminder to act as an all-encompassing search engine to make such data pointsavailable. He truly believes that information is an impor-tant tool in creating change.

Hence, via Gapminder, Dr. Rosling created his latestinnovation, the Trendalyzer. With this software, he dis-proved the common myth that most third world countriesare extremely poor and economically challenged. Trend-

alyzer is a graph that shows progression of various coun-tries throughout time based on different parameters,such as life expectancy at birth, income per capita, car-bon dioxide emissions, and internet users. This softwareexplores all aspects of society and allows any interestedparty to compare and contrast progress. It is ground-breaking because it helps people get a sense of reality

with concrete numbers.

Dr. Rosling's latest technological endeavors have onlyenhanced his lifelong pursuit of studying and alleviatingpoverty. In 1993, he co-founded Medicins San Frontiersin Sweden and continues to partake in other internation-al health organizations such as the World Health Organi-zation (WHO) and United Nations' Children's Fund(UNICEF).

Hans Rosling - the Technology InnovatorLAKSHMAN KALASAPUDI

A physician, researcher, teacher, and innovator,Dr. Rosling has all the tools one needs to fight global poverty.

Source: http://www.gapminder.org

Development status of the world

Congo

Bangladesh India

USA

SouthAfrica

China

Pakistan

DATACATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

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DATACATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

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THE National Commission for Enterprises in theUnorganized Sector reported just last month on

the present state of India's unorganized andinformal sectors of the economy.

(Read the complete paper ath t t p : / / n c e u s . g o v . i n / E x e c u t i v e _ S u m m a -ry_08082007.pdf.) This is probably the most honest

report of its kind published in recent years by a gov-ernment commission in India. The report revealed

that over 77% of the country's population lives onless than $0.50 a day. I have written about this shock-

ing statistic in some detail earlier this week (seehttp://abrahamgeorge.blogspot.com/2007/08/truth-

hurts-but-will-eventually-help.html). I want toadd a few more important conclusions from thisreport.

As of 2005, India had a total employment of 457

million, or nearly 42% of the population. Of this, 423

million people were employed in the unorganized sec-tor (like agriculture) and the informal sector (laborersand other non-salaried workers employed in the orga-nized sector) combined. That leaves only 34 million

people employed in the organized sector which com-prises the country's bureaucracy, military, and those

formally employed in the private and non-profit sec-tors (with registered organizations). Despite this small

proportion of employment in the organized sector,much of India's economic growth is directly attributedto their contribution (such as those in IT, heavy indus-

try, textiles, etc.).

The prevailing expectation is that the small orga-nized sector in India will increase its wealth and

income and employ many more people. But the reali-ty is that this has not yet happened. It is true thatthose employed in the organized private sector have

significantly improved their standard of living, andtheir purchasing power is reflected in increased con-

sumption. The trickle down effect of this wealth cre-ation among a few has not led to any significant

employment creation.

POPULATION RISE OUTPACES JOBS

The Commission report points out that employmentincreased by 60 million in all sectors combined during the5 year period 1999-2000 to 2004-2005. That is an aver-age increase of 12 million jobs a year or approximately1.1% of the population per annum. However, the annu-al rate of increase in population during the same periodhas been around 1.6% per annum - nearly 50% overemployment creation. Moreover, a large number of newjobs have been urban, leaving behind the great majorityof people living in rural areas. Even gains in the urban,organized sector are misleading; most jobs created havebeen in the area of informal workers who lack job secu-rity and social security benefits.

Further, incomes have also not risen much, especial-ly for rural workers. According to the Labor Ministry,

the norm should be around Rs. 66 per day. However,the report finds that 88% of the rural workers were

earning less than this benchmark, and 75% below Rs.

45. It is fairly obvious that urban prosperity has not ledto any significant increase in wealth and income forrural employers and employees.

These statistics are very revealing of the state ofIndia's economy. 1-2% of the country's population in

the private organized sector is reaping much of thefruits of the recent rapid economic growth. Increased

wealth and income remain mostly within this smallminority; the gap between them and the rest of thenation is widening by the day. Those who have accu-

mulated immense wealth are in a position of powerand influence to further enhance it, often without

sharing much with anyone else. The economic andsocial system seems to be inequitably structured and in

the end, most Indians are unable to partake in thebenefits of the aggregate growth in the economy.

Abraham George ([email protected])is the founder of

The George Foundation (www.tgfworld.org),an NGO engaged in a number of poverty

alleviation projects in South India.

Is India's Prosperity Trickling Down?ABRAHAM M. GEORGE

Despite increase in employment by 60 million in all sectors in India during the fiveyears ending 2004-05, most of the new jobs have gone urban and incomes

have also not risen much for rural workers.

DATA 31CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT


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THE reports that there is a view in the Planning Com-mission that poverty has come down by 4 percent-

age points from the estimate in 1999-2000 shouldset alarm bells ringing for those concerned with the rightsand entitlements of the poor. The importance of poverty

estimates has grown in the last decade and a half of neo-liberal policies, since these estimates are used to decide

financial allocations for poverty alleviation programmes.

Lower estimates become the instrument to bully StateGovernments into accepting a smaller share of national

resources for poverty alleviation. Even as the number ofIndian millionaires and billionaires increases, the povertyline decided by a faulty methodology adopted by the Plan-

ning Commission is pegged at just Rs.327 a month for anadult living in rural India.

The methodology followed by the Planning Commissionto estimate poverty underwent a change in the 1990s fol-lowing the recommendations of the Lakdawala Commit-tee. While poverty continued to be defined in terms of per

capita monthly expenditure corresponding to per capitadaily requirement of 2400 calories in rural areas and 2100

calories in urban areas, the price index used to calculate thelevel of expenditure corresponding to the specified calorie

intake was changed from an all-India price index to State-specific ones.

DRAMATIC DECREASE

But the committee retained an outdated consumptionbasket based on the needs of families calculated more than

30 years earlier. Following the adoption of this newmethodology in 1997, there was a dramatic decrease inthe number of Below the Poverty Line (BPL) families in a

large number of States compared to the poverty estimatesbased on the earlier Task Force methodology.

In Andhra Pradesh, poverty estimates went down by as

much as 50 per cent because the price index was much

lower than in other States due to the Rs.2 per kg rice sup-plied through ration shops. Poverty estimates in Karnataka,

Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Orissa were also low-ered and these States vociferously protested. In response,the Planning Commission worked out a formula to "adjust"

the shares of the "affected" States in Central allocations forpoverty alleviation programmes to the extent of 15 per

cent of the difference between the estimates of the TaskForce and the Lakdawala Committee. The 15 per cent fig-

ure was literally taken out of the air and is used even todayto decide State-wise allocations.

In 1999-2000, the Planning Commission came out withnew poverty estimates (55th round of the NSS), which

showed that the rural BPL population was down to 27 percent, implying an unprecedented 10 percentage point

decline in poverty over a five-year period. As is well docu-

mented, these poverty estimates met with a wave of criti-cism since they were gross underestimations based on con-taminated data. The Standing Committee on Food, CivilSupplies and Public Distribution in its 24th Report com-

mented: "The Committee notes that when the modalitiesfor both the surveys (1993-94 and 1999-2000) are not the

same, the Government should not compare these two fig-ures and should not claim a reduction in poverty levels in

the country. The Committee, therefore, desires that thedata should not be taken into account to give a wrong pic-ture of the poverty situation in the country which in turn

can negatively affect the poverty alleviation programme."

INCREASED POPULATION UNACCOUNTED

The Planning Commission's response to this was to"arrange" another poverty estimate for allocations of food-grains and rural development schemes. In actual numbers,

its 1999-2000 poverty estimates of 27 per cent of the lat-est rural population translated into 386.48 lakh families.

The method devised to meet the criticism of gross under-estimation of poverty was to go back to the 37 per cent

rural poverty estimates of 1993-94 but without taking into

Doctored Poverty Estimates

of Planning CommissionBRINDA KARAT

The entire process of poverty estimation by the Planning Commission ischaracterised by arbitrariness and manipulations.

THINKING POINTSCATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

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account the increased population during this period. Whilethe use of old population figures to decide upon Govern-ment programmes meant for the existing BPL population

was clearly unjust, this was adopted as a "middle path"

between contending claims. The only other central

may 2008 catalyst magazine

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