THE HINDU – CURRENT NOTE 15 March
On computing ability, rural India is lost in the woods
•The ability to use computers remains low in the country, in spite of campaigns for digitalisation, an analysis of National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data reveals.
•An estimated 8.8% of the rural population has computing ability. In urban areas, the figure is nearly four times higher, at 30.2%. These findings emerge from an analysis by Md. Zakaria Siddiqui, a scholar of Applied Economics from Australian National University and Sabir Ahamed of Pratichi Trust in Kolkata, of NSSO data of 2014.
•Computing ability was defined as an user’s ability to operate a desktop, laptop, palmtop, notebook, smartphone and tablets.
•The study, supported by the Australian Research Council, claimed that ‘computing ability’ is not linked to digital infrastructure or internet penetration.
•“It is about use of gadgets,” Dr. Siddiqui said. “But if any one of the gadgets — especially a smartphone — is taken out, then the measure of computing ability will go further down.” The data was collated from the NSS 71st round of 2014.
Kerala on top
•Among the major States, Kerala has the highest computing ability at 32.3% in rural areas, while Chhattisgarh has the lowest, 2.9%. In the urban areas, Kerala is in second position, after Delhi. Tamil Nadu and Punjab are in the middle of the table.
•Computing ability, measured from NSS data on Social Consumption and Education, was found to be the lowest in the tribal population.
•The researchers said village or urban blocks were identified to ensure representation of all districts, and for each of these, only eight households (in some cases a varying number) were chosen for the final survey.
•The extraction and transfer of raw data from the NSSO into spreadsheets is ongoing, and the researchers would give their findings at a workshop in April. Scholars from research institutes like the Centre for Study of Regional Development [CSRD] of Jawaharlal Nehru University, IIM-Calcutta, International Institute of Population Sciences [IIPS] are expected to participate, said Amirul Alam, workshop coordinator.
Cooking fuel gap
•Data on access to gas, electricity or kerosene for clean cooking indicate a wide gap between rural and urban consumption. While 14.9% of rural population has access to clean cooking, the figure goes up to 76.4% in urban areas.
Lok Sabha clears amended Enemy Property Bill
as.•Heirs of those who migrated to Pakistan and China during Partition will have no claim over the properties left behind in India, with Parliament on Tuesday passing a Bill to amend a 49-year-old law.
•The Enemy Property (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2016, which amends the Enemy Property Act, 1968, was passed by voice vote in the Lok Sabha, incorporating the amendments made by the Rajya Sabha last week. The LS had passed the Bill earlier but certain amendments were introduced to it in the RS, on the recommendations of a Select Committee. Those amendments had to be approved by the Lower House, which was done on Tuesday.
Seeking clarity
•RSP member N.K. Premachandran had moved a statutory amendment seeking to introduce clarity with regard to those properties which had already been acquired by the heirs of the ‘enemy’ property owners, a reference to nationals of Pakistan and China.
•According to the Bill, “enemy property” refers to any property belonging to, held or managed on behalf of an enemy, an enemy subject or an enemy firm. The government has vested these properties in the Custodian of Enemy Property for India, an office instituted under the Central government.
•After the Indo-Pakistan War of 1965, the Enemy Property Act was enacted in 1968, which regulates such properties and lists the Custodian’s powers.
•“The purpose of [the] Bill is to clarify the 1968 Act. Inheritance law will not be applicable on Enemy Property...This will put an end to the long-pending issue which should have ideally happened in 2010 when the Bill was introduced,” Home Minister Rajnath Singh said.
Not so accessible after all
•Irony: a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result.
•Now that we have the definition of irony established, let me explain how that connects with the disability rights movement.
•But first, a little context. A landmark year for the movement was 2015-16. A fight that was decades in the making went from a murmur to a resounding roar that echoed through the chambers of Parliament. And that roar led to the passing of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2016. From only seven recognised disabilities in the previous archaic Act of 1995 to 21 disabilities now, the new law is a true game changer that provides provisions that will benefit many. This isn’t just a piece of legislation that is the politically correct thing to say. It is the real deal which takes into account real issues like accessibility to infrastructure, technology and information.
•We also saw the launch of the Accessible India Campaign (Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan) by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD) in 2015, and it was welcomed for its spirit and intention. The campaign has a heavy focus on not just accessibility to physical infrastructure, but also on Information and Communication Technologies — which is the elephant in the room we need to address.
•As per the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016: “The appropriate Government shall take steps to ensure that all their public documents are in accessible formats.” The Accessible India Campaign itself has a separate objective and its own targets on enhancing the proportion of accessible and usable public documents. From all the other provisions laid out in the law and the campaign, this needs a special mention since more often than not, people with disabilities miss out on information to do with their own lives because of lack of accessibility.
Attitudinal barriers
•And there’s the connect. The irony. Recently, the DEPwD drafted the rules of the new law which have now been made available to the public for comments. The 74-page-long comprehensive document will be scrutinised by many, but not by those whose lives these rules directly impact. It’s ironic that the rules, a public document on the department’s website, are not published in an accessible format to those whose roar made this happen.
•I have put out opinion pieces, both in long form and those of the 140-character variety. And I have been a part of the Accessible India Campaign and the department. I chose to play that role to understand the dynamic of the government instead of simply pointing fingers and playing the blame game.
•And what did I learn? Attitudinal barriers are here to stay. Formulating an ambitious campaign is a wonderful idea, but what about the barriers within the walls of the system? Change cannot come about if it does not first begin at home. And publishing the rules of the Accessible India Campaign without making them accessible is just ironic in a tragic way.
Food and fuel prices spur acceleration in inflation
•Retail and wholesale price inflation accelerated in February, spurred by food and fuel prices, vindicating the Reserve Bank of India’s decision to change its monetary stance to “neutral” amid concerns about the “persistence” of price gains in categories excluding food and fuel.
•While retail inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) quickened to 3.65%, from January’s 3.2%, according to data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, wholesale price inflation accelerated sharply to a 39-month high of 6.55%, a separate release from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry showed. In comparison, the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) based reading was 5.25% in January.
Perishable food prices
•“In our view, CPI inflation troughed in January (at 3.2% y-o-y) and will start rising due to higher perishable food prices, a gradual narrowing of the output gap, higher minimum support prices and the recent uptick in rural wages,” Nomura economist Sonal Varma wrote in a report.
•The RBI, which is aiming at CPI inflation of 5% by March-end with a mandate to achieve a medium-term target of 4% plus/minus 2%, last month cautioned that vegetable prices may “potentially rebound” as the deflationary effects of demonetisation wear off. The central bank said at the time that “a broad-based stickiness is discernible in inflation,” particularly in housing, health, education, and miscellaneous goods and services consumed by households.
•Tuesday’s data showed inflation in the housing segment of the CPI quickened marginally to 5.02% in February from 4.98% in January. Inflation in the food and beverages category of the CPI was at 2.5% in February, quickening from 1.3% in January.
•Similarly, retail inflation in the fuel and lighting category accelerated to 3.9%, from 3.4% in the preceding month.
•“On the policy front, we expect the RBI to leave rates unchanged throughout 2017,” Nomura’s Varma added.
•Primary articles inflation in the WPI accelerated to 5% in February, from 1.3% in January. Within this, inflation in the food articles segment sped to 2.7%, from a contraction of 0.56% in January. Non-food articles inflation was at 6.5% in February, compared with 2% in January. The minerals segment saw the third month of rapid inflation, with the rate accelerating to 31% in February, from 25% in January.
•“The acceleration (in the WPI) was driven by a sharp rise in primary articles and fuel inflation,” Nomura’s Varma wrote. “Primary inflation rose to 5% y-o-y in February from 1.3% in January, led by a 1.5% m-o-m (month-on-month) rise in non-food prices (flowers, rubber, coconut) and a steep 9% m-o-m rise in mineral prices (manganese ore, crude petroleum, copper ore). Fuel price inflation also picked up on higher coking coal and other market-linked fuel prices.”
•Wholesale inflation in the fuel and power segment quickened to 21% in February, from 18% in the previous month. Within this, coal price inflation stood at 19%.
•“We had expected an adverse base effect to push up WPI inflation in February 2017 to 5.9%,” Aditi Nayar, Principal Economist at ICRA, said. “The lagged revision in the minerals sub-index, particularly for crude oil, contributed to the sharper-than-anticipated spike in WPI inflation to 6.5% in February 2017, as well as the upward revision in the December 2016 print to 3.7%.”
•Inflation in manufactured products in the WPI eased marginally to 3.7% in February, from 4% in January.
•“Manufactured inflation moderated to 3.7% y-o-y in February from 4% in January, as prices of beverages and tobacco, wood, leather and basic metal products declined sequentially,” Nomura’s Varma wrote. “Thus, the WPI inflation uptick was driven by higher input costs and not by higher output prices.”
BRICS to discuss steps to boost investment
•BRICS nations will soon consider a proposal to frame ‘guiding principles’ for investment policymaking to boost investment flows into Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa as well as take steps to promote e-commerce among the five leading emerging economies.
•In addition, the BRICS Contact Group on Economic and Trade Issues (CGETI) meeting – slated for early next week in Beijing – will also discuss measures for closer cooperation among the BRICS countries for developing their respective national single window for trade facilitation, official sources told The Hindu.
•China, the current BRICS chair, wants to push ‘investment facilitation’ and ‘e-commerce’–related issues, the sources said. Beijing’s proposal for ‘Guiding Principles for BRICS Investment Policymaking’ is similar to ‘Guiding Principles’ agreed by the G20 (group of 20 major economies of the world) Trade Ministers at Shanghai in July 2016 under the Chinese G20 Presidency, they said. India was part of that meeting. China has also been at the forefront of a proposal for a global pact on ‘investment facilitation and promotion’ at the World Trade Organisation (WTO)-level, and is making efforts to ensure that the proposal on a global investment pact gains traction before the WTO Ministerial Conference (MC) meeting in December 2017 in Buenos Aires (Argentina). The MC meeting is the WTO’s highest decision-taking body.
•The ‘G20 Guiding Principles for Global Investment Policymaking’, among other things, states that, “Governments should avoid protectionism in relation to cross-border investment” and that “investment policies should establish open, non-discriminatory, transparent and predictable conditions for investment.”
•It adds that, “dispute settlement procedures should be fair, open and transparent, with appropriate safeguards to prevent abuse.” China, driving this year’s BRICS agenda, now wants the BRICS nations to separately adopt these principles and enter into an ‘investment facilitation’ agreement. India had recently rejected a proposal by the European Union and Canada at the WTO-level for a global investment pact that incorporates the contentious Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism. The ISDS mechanism allows firms to drag governments to international arbitration without waiting to exhaust the available local remedies and seek huge compensation.
Focus on e-commerce
•China has been leading the discussions on e-commerce at the global level. In November 2016, the WTO said China had proposed that discussions at WTO should focus on the promotion and facilitation of cross-border trade in goods enabled by the Internet. “It (China) said discussions (on e-commerce) could also include services directly supporting this, such as payment and logistic services,” the WTO said.
•Incidentally, there is a proposal for setting up a common payment gateway to promote e-commerce among BRICS.
