Daily News Compilation (HINDU) for 10th May

The Gujarat middle

Jean Dreze has showed how Gujrat model is highly inflated and over hyped. That is not important from examination point of view. But the article is really informative about the Summary Indexes and I have added some more information on them.

1.  Human Development Index (HDI)

>>composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and income indices used to rank countries into four tiers of human development

>> created by the Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq and the Indian economist Amartya Sen in 1990 and was published by the United Nations Development Programme.

>> starting with the 2010 Human Development Report the HDI combines three dimensions:

• A long and healthy life: Life expectancy at birth
• Education index: Mean years of schooling and Expected years of schooling

Mean years of schooling (Years that a 25-year-old person or older has spent in schools)

Expected years of schooling (Years that a 5-year-old child will spend with his education in his whole life)

• A decent standard of living: GNI per capita (PPP US$)

HDI is the geometric mean of the previous three normalized indices:

In the 2010 Human Development Report a further Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI) was introduced. 

IHDI : actual level of human development (accounting for inequality)

HDI :  index of "potential" human development (or the maximum IHDI that could be achieved if there were no inequality)".

HDI is scored 0-1. 1 being highest.

2. Achievements of Babies and Children (ABC)

>> It is a summary index of child well-being.

>> based on four indicators related to 

• child nutrition
• survival
• education  
• immunisation 

3. Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)

Briefly, the idea is that poverty manifests itself in different kinds of deprivation — lack of food, shelter, sanitation, schooling, health care, and so on. Starting with a list of basic deprivations, a household is considered “poor” if it has more than a given proportion (say one third) of these deprivations.

>> developed in 2010 by Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative and the United Nations Development Programme

Dimension	Indicators
Health	Child Mortality Nutrition
Education	Years of school Children enrolled
Living Standards	Cooking fuel Toilet Water Electricity Floor Assets

Each dimension and each indicator within a dimension is equally weighted.

A person is considered poor if they are deprived in at least 33.33% of the weighted indicators. The intensity of poverty denotes the proportion of indicators in which they are deprived.

4. Composite Development Index

>> devised by the Raghuram Rajan Committee. 

>> This index has ten components related to per capita consumption, household amenities, health, education, urbanisation, connectivity, financial inclusion

The Committee  recommended that 

• States that score 0.6 and above on the Index may be classified as “Least Developed”; 
• States that score below  0.6 and above 0.4 may be classified as “Less Developed”; 
• States that score below 0.4 may be classified as “Relatively Developed”.  

Demand for funds and special attention of different States will be more than adequately met by the twin recommendations of the basic allocation of 0.3 percent of overall funds to each State and the categorisation of States that score 0.6 and above as “Least Developed” States. 

Of the remaining 91.6% (28 states => 8.4% fixed payment), 3/4th will be distributed based on “need” and 1/4 on “performance”. 

According to the Committee, these two recommendations, along with the allocation methodology, effectively subsume what is now “Special Category”.

5. Performance Index

>> devised by the Raghuram Rajan Committee

>> captures the progress that States are making over time in terms of the Composite Development Index. 

Raising the bogey of illegal immigration

The article highlights that the Bangladesh factor used in this election to capture votes in North Eastern states like Assam is harming our relationships with Bangladesh.

The ruling party Awami League is portrayed as pro Indian and the use of the issue of Bangladeshi immmigrants has caused fear in the Bangladesh's government that a regime change in Delhi will affect India-Bangladesh relations.

Gyaan

“Bangabhumi” movement

Bangabhumi also known as Bir Bango , is a separatist movement to create a Hindu country using southwestern Bangladesh, envisioned by Banga Sena of Bangladesh.

The movement was founded in 1973 in India soon after Bangladeshi independence to support the Hindu refugees from Bangladesh, who were targeted by the Pakistani army in the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities based on ideas of reconquest

Climate change making food crops less nutritious

Rising carbon dioxide emissions are set to make the world’s staple food crops less nutritious, according to new scientific research, worsening the serious ill health already suffered by billions of malnourished people.

The field trials of wheat, rice, maize and soybeans showed that higher CO{-2}levels significantly reduced the levels of the essential nutrients iron and zinc, as well as cutting protein levels.

Two billion people already suffer iron and zinc deficiencies around the world. This causes serious harm, in particular to developing babies and pregnant women, and currently causes the loss of 63m years of life annually.

The case against privatisation of education

Recently there was an article on whether higher education in India should be privatised or not. This article builds on that.

• Proponents of private education start with the observation that the supply of publicly provided professional education has not expanded commensurately with the growth in demand, thus signalling a failure. This is entirely well taken, and prima facie makes a strong case for allowing private entry. However, the associated argument often found, that the government should cease regulating institutions that it does not fund, is surely wrong.
• Another argument for privatisation of professional education that has been made is that doctors and engineers, trained using the tax payer’s money, have now begun to enter politics. As a democracy, we should actually be rejoicing that public life is now attracting individuals from a more diverse educational gene pool. Of course, there could be a problem if all our young doctors and engineers deserted their original professions, but this does not appear to be the case yet. 
• On the other hand, it is only a false consciousness that makes us proud when many of them who have been trained using the tax payer’s money leave the county to practise overseas. But the answer to this malaise is surely not the privatisation of professional education, but to expect that these youth in question serve in India, if not in the public sector itself, for a brief period after graduation, in lieu of which they repay the cost of their education. 
• We need continuing social audit of regulation in higher education.
• While the government has at times intervened intrusively, especially when it comes to admission, it has by and large left ungoverned the functioning of even aided public colleges. The most egregious instance of this is the practice of publicly aided colleges auctioning their faculty positions.
• Most important reason for the state to remain in higher education is that the private sector is yet to demonstrate its capacity to create knowledge on a sufficient scale. Where is the research that creates knowledge? Even in these ‘professional’ courses there is more research in public institutions than in the private ones. 

CBI to probe Saradha scam

Broad-based support for Indus Water Treaty in Pakistan

A new report based on interviews with experts reveals that there was broad-based support for the Indus Water treaty in Pakistan and that India was entitled to its share of water, including building of dams. The impression that India was stealing Pakistan’s share was not based on any real empirical evidence, according to the report, “Pakistan’s Water Discourse, Attitudes on Water Management Practices,” by Jinnah Institute and Chatham House.

Call for China to be proactive in Afghanistan

A spate of terror attacks in recent weeks targeting railway stations in China has brought into the spotlight the government’s concerns about growing capabilities of extremist groups in the far-western Xinjiang region, with Chinese officials and strategic experts fearing that terror groups could soon become further emboldened by possible instability in neighbouring Afghanistan following the imminent withdrawal of United States-led NATO forces.
Chinese strategic scholars are now calling on Beijing to rethink its long-held reluctance to play a greater security role in neighbouring Afghanistan – where Chinese involvement has largely been limited to investments in mines and infrastructure projects – amid fears that a deteriorating situation there could impact security in Xinjiang in the wake of three daring attacks in recent weeks that have left at least 30 people killed and more than 200 injured.
This week, a government think-tank released a first ever National Security Blue Book, or policy guideline, warning that as Chinese overseas interests were expanding, terrorism in China was “taking on new characteristics.”
Chinese officials believe members of the separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) have been hiding out in border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Loo and behold, India’s dirty secret is out in the open

With as many as 597 million people practising open defecation, India still has the largest number of people defecating in open in the world, according to a new UN report.
The report — ‘Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation (2014 update) — released on Friday says 82 per cent of the one billion people practising open defection in the world live in just 10 countries.
Worse, despite having some of the highest numbers of open defecators, India does not feature among the countries making great strides in reducing open defecation, the report jointly prepared by the WHO and the UNICEF says.
According to the UN, countries where open defecation is most widely practised have the highest number of deaths of children under the age of five, as well as high levels of under-nutrition, high levels of poverty and large disparities between the rich and poor.
There are also strong gender impacts: lack of safe, private toilets makes women and girls vulnerable to violence and is an impediment to girls’ education, it says.