Human capital formation and reservations.

India being an ancient civilization and heterogeneous community is the breeding land for many religions and castes. Our strength is derived in its unity, and again our unity rests in harmonious coexistence of all the individuals with different affiliations (religious and political). Fraternity enshrined in the preamble of our constitution should be the harbinger for the citizens of our country to inculcate in themselves tolerance and harmony.

However, it is very unfortunate that even after almost 60 years of independence; the concept of reservations is deeply rooted in the minds of people of India.

In response to the writ petitions filed in the Supreme Court, the centre on May 02, 2007 tried to justify the enactment of 93 ^rd constitutional amendment, introducing clause 15(5) in article 15, to facilitate framing of laws to provide quotas for socially and educationally backward sections.

On the reasons for bringing such an amendment, the central government said it "does not violate the basic structure [of constitution] and is, in fact, intended to strengthen it by providing meaningful equality of educational opportunity by eliminating the existing inequality."

The exaggeration in the argument of the centre is understandable in the light of historical reasons. We do understand the kind of deprivation experienced by some sections of our society in the past and in some cases even today. But is the Government really bent upon achieving social and economic justice. Are the policies really commensurate with the principle of equity?

The fact that reservations is provided for SCs, STs and other under privileged classes at the school, college and even at higher education level is very understandable and just (however we shall not discuss here the validity of the exact percentage). They have every right to claim reservation at this level. This policy is certainly commendable and even commensurate with the policy of "Equity" wherein we are creating enough and just opportunities to all social sections of the society to have access to good education.  

Furthermore the amendment to article 335 gives the underprivileged population relaxation in the qualifying marks as well. To add to this there is even relaxation on the age to these so called sections of the society. Things are fine till this point.

But this does not complete the concatenation of privileges. Once educated on par with the general category, reservations are also provided at the entry and promotion level of employment.

Once educated on par with the general category and so called upper classes, is there any social, moral or intellectual reason for providing reservation at the employment level? The ideology of "Equity" takes a terrible beating here. After education, everybody irrespective of caste of creed is assumed to be at the same intellectual level. At this juncture, concept of reservation at entry and promotion level of employment will create animosity among different classes of society and will not be commensurate with the ideology of Fraternity. Certainly this is in conflict with the government's principle of equity and integration as it argued on May 02,2007.

The article 16(4A) gives even consequential seniority to a person promoted from the reserved class. This is certainly unjust. This article implies that once promoted, a reserved class candidate has perpetual seniority and a person belonging to general candidature lands up in an impasse. The government is also trying to persuade the private sector to adopt reservations in their respective enterprises. Does the government think these policies will contribute to fraternity, equity and integration among different societies of our nation?

On the other hand these are creating animosity between different sections. The animosity is only likely to increase in future if no corrective action is taken.

The architect behind liberalization is our honourable prime minister. Being one of the greatest economists and a great leader, he is driving our nation into a double digit growth rate. Excellent strategies like SEZs are flourishing under his able visionary. [The catch point is apart from the financial crisis in 1991, the government opened up markets to create competition under the World Bank pressure].

Barring few negatives, the concept of liberalization and consequent globalization has yielded rich fruition to our nation's economy. But the same great statesman is also moving policies of reservation not only in education but also in employment and promotion. Is he not curbing healthy competition within the country while encouraging competition between foreigners and Indians?

Our country is facing severe shortage of skilled scientists and engineers. ISRO, the leading R & D institute in India is in severe shortage of manpower. Recent articles published in leading national dailies report the lowering standards of foreign diplomats and Bureaucrats who are considered as steel frame of administration. With this backdrop, if our government does not take corrective action, we may be heading for a crisis, "The crisis of human capital."

Climate Change and India

This was the article that i wrote for The Hindu Business Line. An abridged version was published on 03, May 2007. 

Our Indian planners find themselves in a fix in the wake of the fourth assessment report of the U.N.Intergovernmental panel on climate change. On one hand our economy is growing at a robust 9.2 percent and has bagged Investment grade by reputed international rating agencies. On the other hand, we are facing a huge environmental threat. The fourth assessment report testifies a crisis in the making for south Asia in general and India in particular if businesses go as on today.

So what are our options? Do we put brakes on our economic growth? Do we radically transform our manufacturing process? The latter will not happen overnight and is not an immediate solution. The former will be paying a price or atoning for mistakes which we never committed.

Pointing fingers at India and china for increasing the emissions of Green house gases and forcing them to put a cap on the emissions is clearly unjust. India is doing exactly what the so called developed countries did a century ago. It is true that India has maximum reliance on fossil fuels for her energy needs.  But at the moment she is helpless and fossil fuels are the only immediate available window for her growing energy needs.

Our way ahead must be carefully planned and holistic. Today we stand as one of the world's economic powers. Along with strong macroeconomic fundamentals, we have a very strong lobby in the world and particularly in America. We must put these to good effect to clinch our objectives at the international level.

 India must use her international lobby to cajole the industrialized economies to act on the affirmative to control the emission of green house gases. The developed countries who are responsible for damage caused should act with urgency and seriousness to atone for it. India must lead the developing economies in pressurizing the industrialized nations to correct the damage by reducing their emissions of dangerous gases and other suitable measures.

Professor Stern, a former chief economist at the World Bank, has developed an economic model to show that stabilizing emissions to a level of about 550 parts per million of carbon dioxide (nearly double the quantity in the atmosphere at the start of industrial revolution) appears possible with an investment of just 1 percent of GDP by 2050. In the backdrop of such affirmations, it is high time that the industrialized economies act with some concern and accountability to make space for developing economies like India and others.

On the domestic front, parallel to moving on to the higher growth trajectories, we must develop innovative and greener technologies. Fillip to research activities in harnessing tidal, wind, bio and solar energy would bear rich fruition in near future. Heavy impetus must be given to research and development activities in developing our thorium based third stage fast breeder nuclear reactor. Great emphasis must be laid on creating environmental awareness among the youth and children.

Though environmental sciences are thought in most science and engineering courses, adequate justice has not been done to the subject. Students learn the subject strictly from the examination point of view and the teachers do the lip service to satisfy the former. There is an urgent need to transform such out of place systems. I have taken part in seminars and talks on environmental issues in reputed institutions where beverages and snacks are served in plastic tumblers and plates. Disappointing are few students who take part in such seminars do not even know that the air conditioner in the hall is emitting chlorofluorocarbons and expensive deodorants and body sprays they use do not do much good either.

Environmentally concerned people ought to be rewarded and recognized. For instance, the property tax on people who make use of environmental friendly materials like use of fly ash bricks, soil cement blocks etc or adopt rain water harvesting techniques can be reduced. People must be encouraged to use energy efficient materials.  Bourgeois community using high energy consuming materials like glass and aluminum (Aluminum and glass consume almost 150 times the energy of regular masonry structures) must be heavily taxed.

It is high time that the Indian community becomes sensitive to climate change. If we do not take urgent measures in combating environmental pollution, if convenience rules over concerns, inconvenient truth will be inevitable.