📰 Japan’s ‘washi’ paper torn by modern life; struggles to attract customers
Despite its UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage tag, the artefact’s market value is dwindling
•Once an indispensable part of daily life in Japan, ultra-thin washi paper was used for everything from writing and painting to lampshades, umbrellas, and sliding doors, but demand has plunged as lifestyles have become more westernised.
•Despite its 1,300-year history and UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage status, washi paper is struggling to attract consumers and the market value has dropped by more than 50% in the past two decades.
•But at a small workshop in western Japan, Hiroyoshi Chinzei, a fourth-generation traditional paper maker, creates washi with a unique purpose that may help revive interest — both at home and abroad. His product, the world’s thinnest paper, has helped save historical documents at major museums and libraries — including the Louvre in Paris, the British Museum and Washington’s Library of Congress — from decay.
•“Washi paper is more flexible and durable” than what Japanese refer to as “western paper”, which disintegrates into tiny pieces when it becomes very old, said the 50-year-old.
•The traditional hand-made paper is manufactured from plants called kozo, or mulberry, which has fibres that are much longer than materials used for paper in the west such as wood and cotton.
•“Old Japanese books from the seventh or eighth century remain in good condition... thanks to the fibres of the kozo plants,” said the washi maker at his small factory in Hidaka, a village 640 km southwest of Tokyo.
‘Wings of a mayfly’
•Mr. Chinzei’s washi, a type called tengu-joshi paper also known as “the wings of a mayfly”, is 0.02 mm thick and weighs 1.6 gm per square metre.
•“It’s a mesh-like paper mainly made with fibres... It’s as thin as human skin,” Mr. Chinzei said. This compared to a standard sheet of photocopy paper, which is about 0.09 millimetres thick and weighs 70 gm per square metre. Using both machines and hand-made techniques passed down for generations, the firm can create ultra-thin paper, which is also used by conservationists to restore and protect cultural objects.
•One such conservationist, Takao Makino, carefully applies washi with a brush onto golden sticks representing the halo of a Buddhist statue estimated to be around 800 years old.
•He used washi for the first time in 2007 to protect the surface of one of the two main statues at Tokyo’s historic Sensoji Temple.
•“The surface was damaged and peeled off. So we covered all of it (with washi) to contain the damage,” the 68-year-old said.
Plan will spur growth, says Kovind
•President Ram Nath Kovind on Thursday asked the Members of Parliament to seriously ponder over the proposal of simultaneous polls, terming it “development-oriented”.
•In his hour-long address to both Houses of Parliament, he stated that the people of the country had “demonstrated their wisdom by delivering a clear verdict” in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
•Mr. Kovind also flagged the government’s move to push forward with the triple talaq Bill in this session, its decision to implement the National Register of Citizens (NRC) on a priority basis and strong response to terror after the attack in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir, on February 14. “‘One nation simultaneous election’ is the need of the hour, which would facilitate accelerated development, thereby benefiting our countrymen. With such a system in place, all political parties, according to their respective ideologies, will be able to better utilise their energy towards development and public welfare,” he said.
•The government had taken steps to curb infiltration by deciding to implement the NRC, currently being updated in Assam, on a priority basis in areas affected by infiltration, the President said.
•While the government was working to identify infiltrators, it was also fully committed to protecting those who were victims of persecution due to their faith in neighbouring countries, via the Citizenship Act, but that it would be amended to protect linguistic, cultural and social identities, he said.
•The amendments to the Act were necessitated by huge protests in the northeastern region, particularly in Assam, early this year.
Tough on terror
•Mr. Kovind commended the government for acting tough on terror after the Pulwama attack. “India has amply demonstrated both her intent and capabilities, first through surgical strikes and then through air strikes after Pulwama on terrorist hideouts across the border. In future too, all possible steps will be taken to ensure our security,” he said. The “whole world stands with India on the issue of terrorism, the designation of Masood Azhar, responsible for the dastardly terrorist attacks on our soil, as a global terrorist by the United Nations is a major testimony to this fact.”
•UPA leader Sonia Gandhi was seen thumping her desk when the Balakot air strikes after Pulwama was mentioned by the President.
•Mr. Kovind said India would host a G-20 summit in 2022, a sign of its “new image”.
•The “eradication of social evils like triple talaq and nikah halala” was imperative and all members should cooperate in such efforts. The Union Cabinet had cleared a fresh bill on triple talaq and is expected to table it in this session of Parliament.
•The President concluded his remarks by referring to Mahatma Gandhi’s talisman as a guiding principle for all MPs. “My advice to all MPs is that you should always remember the fundamental ‘mantra’ of Gandhiji. He had said that every decision of ours should be guided by its impact on the poorest and weakest person in society,” he said.
📰 Bureaucrats to spend two days in J&K villages
Under ‘Back to the Village’ programme
•As part of its unique outreach programme, ‘Back to the Village’, the Governor’s administration in Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday designated gazetted officers to all the 4,483 panchayats in the State to seek feedback and share knowledge on government schemes.
•“The idea is to have a gazetted officer each in all 4,483 panchayats. It’s a first for J&K,” said Rohit Kansal, Principal Secretary, Planning, Development and Monitoring.
•Each officer has been directed to visit a gram panchayat and interact with the stakeholders “in a bid to innovate programmes, ensure participation and decentralise planning”.
•Under the ‘Back to the Village’ programme, around 4,500 gazetted officers will spend a minimum of two days, including one night, in the allocated panchayat.
•“It’s aimed at strengthening the bond between the government and the citizens,” said Syed Sehrish Asgar, District Development Commissioner, Budgam.
📰 Misplaced priorities
There is no case to introduce simultaneous polls to the Lok Sabha and Assemblies in haste
•The decision to form a committee to examine the issue of holding simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and the State Assemblies is a significant step towards achieving Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s objective of synchronising elections across the country. The fact that he took the initiative to convene a meeting of leaders of all political parties so early in his second stint in office shows that he attaches considerable importance to it. Advocates of such elections point to potential benefits. There is the obvious advantage of curbing the huge expenditure involved and reducing the burden on the manpower deployed. The second point in its favour is that ruling parties can focus more on governance and less on campaigning. The idea that some part of the country is in election mode every year, resulting in impediments to development work due to the model code of conduct being in force, is cited in favour of reducing election frequency. But there are challenging questions of feasibility that the political system must contend with. First, it may require the curtailment or extension of the tenure of State legislatures to bring their elections in line with the Lok Sabha poll dates. Should State governments bear this burden just to fulfil the ideal of simultaneous elections? There is an obvious lack of political consensus on this. Another question is: what happens if the government at the Centre falls?
•The Law Commission, in its working paper on the subject, has mooted the idea of a ‘constructive vote of confidence’. That is, while expressing loss of trust in one government, members should repose confidence in an alternative regime. Another idea is that whenever mid-term polls are held due to loss of majority, the subsequent legislature should serve out only the remainder of the term. These measures would involve far-reaching changes to the law, including amendments to the Constitution to alter the tenure of legislatures and the provision for disqualification of members for supporting an alternative regime. In terms of principle, the main issue is whether getting all elections to coincide undermines representative democracy and federalism. In a parliamentary democracy, the executive is responsible to the legislature; and its legitimacy would be undermined by taking away the legislature’s power to bring down a minority regime by mandating a fixed tenure just to have simultaneous elections. The interests of regional parties may take a beating, as regional issues may be subsumed by national themes in a common election. Given these challenges, there is simply no case for hastening the introduction of simultaneous elections. The government must accord priority to other electoral reforms. For instance, it should seek ways to curb spending by candidates and parties, which has reached alarmingly high levels and poses a threat to free and fair elections.
📰 Tension in the Persian Gulf
The U.S. and Iran are muddyingthe waters with accusations and counter-accusations
•The U.S. administration’s strategy to counter Iran on the nuclear front is being met with an alleged new strategy that has left the global security community baffled in more ways than one. It is being suggested that shipping vessels be provided naval escorts through the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, something reminiscent of World War II when most merchant ships would be provided with naval security.
•Two oil tankers, one belonging to the Norwegian shipping company Frontline and the other a Japanese vessel, Kokuka Courageous, were sabotaged in the Strait of Hormuz by what the American central command calls limpet mines, apparently manufactured in Iran. Speculation has been rife over who may have conducted such a sophisticated attack in a sea route through which 40% of the world’s traded oil passes. The U.S. blames Iran for the sabotage attacks, even releasing videos and photographs of the incident in an attempt to prove Iranian involvement, something Tehran has vehemently denied.
•The situation in the Gulf has been brewing for a few months now and there can be multiple ways to read it. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was on a state visit to Tehran, hoping to mediate between the two rivals, when the Japanese tanker was attacked.
•To believe either side of the story, without evidence, would be misleading. However, geopolitics in most instances does not come in black or white — rather, it’s all grey. The U.S.’s decision to unilaterally pull out of the Iran nuclear deal and impose sanctions on Iran for its nuclear programme has not gone down well with Tehran; the global community too has not appreciated the move. The American side of the story is that Iran is meeting economic and diplomatic manoeuvres with violent attacks by pulling off sophisticated sabotage on the seas. Iranians, on the other hand, proclaim that it is the American intelligence apparatus that is conducting such moves to escalate the situation to the brink of war, thus paving the way for yet another ‘promotion of democracy’ in West Asia.
•Iran has been at the wrong end of American sanctions for decades now, and it has learned to negotiate its way each time with creative new strategies. However, the recent U.S. pressure on countries such as India, Japan and Turkey to reduce their oil imports from Iran to zero has hit Tehran where it hurts most. And this new strategy of sabotaging oil supply routes in the Persian Gulf may be Iran’s ‘creative’ way of dealing with American absolutism. It might well be Iran’s way of looking at the adverse situation created by the U.S.: ‘If we can’t ship oil, might as well let no one else do it too.’
📰 India’s first solar-powered cruise boat to be rolled out in December
A ₹3-cr. cruise boat that can carry 100 passengers is under construction at a boatyard in Aroor
•Close on the heels of launching India’s first solar-powered ferry in 2016, Kerala is gearing up for the launch of the country’s premier solar-powered cruise boat by December.
•The initiative comes from the State Water Transport Department (SWTD), whose solar ferry Aditya in the Vaikom-Thavanakadavu route has proved to be a success.
•“The ₹3-crore cruise boat that can carry 100 passengers is under construction at a boatyard in Aroor and comes from the stable of the builders of Aditya. It will be rolled out in Alappuzha in December. The hybrid vessel will be powered by a motor that can source energy from solar panels, battery, and generator. Its battery will have 80 KWh (kilowatt hour) power backup, as compared to 50 KWh backup in Aditya,” says Shaji V. Nair, director of SWTD.
Low energy expense
•Aditya incurs a rock-bottom energy expense of ₹200 a day, as compared to the approximately ₹8,000 needed for diesel-powered ferries.
•Solar vessels do not create air and noise pollution. The double-deck, double-engine catamaran-type vessel adheres to norms specified by the Indian Registry of Shipping (IRS). The vessel will have an air-conditioned lower deck and pushback seats, he said.
•The upper deck, which is non-air conditioned, can be used for dining and to get a better view of the backwaters. Apart from regular cruise, the vessel would be ideal to host parties and conferences.
•“A similar cruise boat will be introduced in Ernakulam based on commuter response to the one in Alappuzha,” Mr. Nair said.
•Considering the huge savings in energy expenses, the SWTD has also drawn up plans to introduce three sister vessels of Aditya by the end of the year. “A solar ferry would operate in the Panavalli-Perumbalam sector while two such ferries will operate from Vaikom (most likely to Ernakulam and back),” he added.
•The SWTD is, in the meantime, readying to launch a sister vessel of its fast ferry Vega-120, which was launched in the Vaikom-Ernakulam-Fort Kochi route early this year.
•The new ₹1.90-crore vessel will operate a trip each from Kottayam to Alappuzha and back during peak hours.
•It will operate from Kumarakom to Alappuzha during the rest of the day, ferrying people between the two tourist destinations in 30 minutes. It takes about two hours to cover the distance by bus.
•The department has also planned a water taxi service each in Ernakulam and Alappuzha. Each such vessel can carry 15 passengers, has a 400-horse power outboard engine, and can touch a speed of 26 km per hour. They will be available for tourists at an hourly rent, Mr. Nair said.
📰 Navy plans to build 6 submarines
Second project being undertaken under the Strategic Partnership model
•The Navy issued an ‘Expression of Interest’ for shortlisting potential strategic partners for the construction of six P-75 (I) submarines costing nearly ₹45,000 crore, the Defence Ministry said on Thursday.
•This is the second project being undertaken under the latest Strategic Partnership (SP) Model, with the first being the procurement of 111 naval utility helicopters (NUH). This will provide a major boost to the indigenous design and construction capability of submarines in India, in addition to bringing in the latest submarine design and technologies as part of the project, the Navy said.
•“As a major initiative towards ‘Make in India’, the government immediately on taking over has issued the Expression of Interest(s) for shortlisting of potential Indian Strategic Partners (SPs) for “construction of six conventional submarines for P-75(I) project of the Indian Navy on June 20,” it said.
•The case was approved by the Defence Acquisition Council on January 31. The Expression of Interest (EoI) for shortlisting of Indian strategic partners has been uploaded on the Defence Ministry and Navy websites.
•The EoI for shortlisting of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) will be issued in two weeks, the Navy said.
•The SPs in collaboration with OEMs have been mandated to set up dedicated manufacturing lines for these submarines in India with an aim to make India the global hub for submarine design and production.
•“All six submarines under this project will be built in India by the selected Indian Strategic Partner in collaboration with the selected OEM. In addition, the Navy will have the option to manufacture six more submarines under the project,” the Defence Ministry said.
Big push
•The project would not only aid in boosting the core submarine and the ship building industry but also greatly enhance the manufacturing, industrial sectors, especially the medium, small and micro enterprises, by development of an industrial eco-system for manufacture of associated spares, systems, and equipment related to submarines.
•The potential Strategic Partners are expected to respond to the EoI within two months.
•“The Indian companies would be shortlisted based on their capability for integration of systems, expertise in shipbuilding domain and the financial strength. The OEMs would be shortlisted primarily based on their submarine design meeting the Indian Navy’s Qualitative Requirements and qualifying the Transfer of Technology and Indigenous Content [IC] criteria,” the Defence Ministry said.
•“This will be an important step towards meeting broader national objectives, encouraging self-reliance and aligning the defence sector with the ‘Make in India’ initiative of the government,” it added.
📰 Himalayan glaciers are melting twice as fast since 2000: study
Cold war-era spy satellite images repurposed to study ice loss in 650 glaciers
•Comparing data obtained by Cold War-era spy satellites with images from modern stereo satellites, scientists have shown that Himalayan glaciers have lost more than a quarter of their ice mass since 1975, with melting occurring twice as fast after the turn of the century as average temperatures rose.
•In the 1970s, at the height of the Cold War, the U.S. had deployed spy satellites that orbited the globe and took thousands of photographs, using a telescopic camera system, for reconnaissance purposes. Film recovery capsules would be ejected from the KH-9 Hexagon military satellites and parachuted back to Earth over the Pacific Ocean.
•More than four decades later, scientists are using those same images to show the devastating impact of a warming earth on the Himalayan glaciers. The overlapping images, each covering 30,000 square kilometres with a ground resolution of six to nine metres, have been pieced together to form digital elevation models of the Himalayas of that era.
•In an article published in the Science Advances journal on Wednesday, J.M. Maurer and co-authors analysed four decades of ice loss for 650 of the largest glaciers across a 2,000 km transect across the Himalayas.
•“Our observed annual mass losses suggest that of the total ice mass present in 1975, about 87% remained in 2000 and 72% remained in 2016,” the study’s authors wrote. “We find similar mass loss rates across subregions and a doubling of the average rate of loss during 2000–2016 relative to the 1975–2000 interval,” they added.
•The study goes on to assert that rising temperatures are responsible for the accelerating loss.
•“This is consistent with the available multidecade weather station records scattered throughout HMA [High Mountain Asia, which includes all mountain ranges surrounding the Tibetan Plateau] which indicate quasi-steady mean annual air temperatures through the 1960s to the 1980s with a prominent warming trend beginning in the mid-1990s and continuing into the 21st century,” the authors wrote, noting an average increase of 1° celsius since 2000.
📰 First “song” recorded from rare, lovelorn, right whale off Alaska
Scientists say the crooning could be the mating call of one of the most elusive marine mammals
•For the first time, scientists have recorded singing by one of the rarest whales on Earth, and it just might be looking for a date.
•The crooning comes from a possibly lovelorn North Pacific right whale and its song was documented by researchers in the Bering Sea off Alaska’s coast, and announced on Wednesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
•The song may not be a greatest hit, but is classified by marine biologists as an underwater call using a distinct pattern of sounds. And it is the scientists’ best guess that this serenade of the seas is a mating call from a lonely aquatic mammal.
•Scientists surveying endangered marine mammal populations first heard the tune in 2010 but could not be sure what kind of whale was singing, said Jessica Crance, of NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center.
•At the time, the researchers were travelling in thick fog and could not see the animal, she said. But scientists figured out it was indeed a right whale after analysis of a lot of collected acoustical data, followed by a specific sighting during a 2017 marine-mammal research cruise, Ms. Crance said.
•“That year, we saw the whale that was singing.”
•The right whale’s carolling is described in a study published in the current issue of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, and is the first confirmed song from any right whale population.
•This history-making discovery sheds light on the behaviour of one of the planets most elusive marine animals, NOAA said.
•While this is the first known tune, right whales are not mute. They are known to be chatty by making gunshot sounds. What made this newly-recorded noise a song was its repeated pattern, timing in between gunshots and the number of gunshots, Ms. Crance said.
•The singing whale spotted in 2017 was a male, and is in the tiny population where dates are hard to find. There are only about 30 whales in this population and males outnumber females by a 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 ratio, Ms. Crance said.
📰 WHO writes new prescription to prevent misuse of antibiotics
Guidelines specify which drugs must be sparingly used.
•Rx: Keep it simple. This is the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) prescription to combat the growing menace of antibiotic abuse and burgeoning resistance worldwide.
•In its latest advisory, WHO has suggested the adoption of ‘Access, Watch and Reserve’, an approach that specifies which antibiotics to use for the most common and serious infections, which ones ought to be available at all times in the healthcare system, and those that must be used sparingly, or reserved and used only as a last resort.
•WHO estimates that more than 50% of antibiotics in many countries are used inappropriately for treatment of viruses, when they only treat bacterial infections, or are the wrong choice of antibiotic (broader spectrum), thus contributing to the spread of antimicrobial resistance.
•The new campaign aims to increase the proportion of global consumption of antibiotics in the ‘Access’ group to at least 60%, and to reduce use of the antibiotics most at risk of resistance.
•Using ‘Access’ antibiotics lowers the risk of resistance because they are ‘narrow-spectrum’ antibiotics (that target a specific microorganism rather than several). They are also less costly because they are available in generic formulations.
•In India, the Health Ministry has made it mandatory to display a 5mm-thick red vertical band on the packaging of prescription-only drugs to sensitise people to be cautious while buying these medicines that are widely sold without prescriptions.
•WHO has now urged all countries to adopt the Access, Watch and Reserve guidelines to reduce the spread of antimicrobial resistance, adverse events and costs.
•When antibiotics stop working effectively, more expensive treatments and hospital admissions are needed, taking a heavy toll on already stretched health budgets.
📰 Is India overestimating its economic growth?
The new GDP series has somemethodological and sampling problems
•Former Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian recently claimed in a paper that India’s GDP growth from 2011-12 to 2016-17 was likely to have been overestimated. The Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council has rejected this claim, stating that his paper would “not stand the scrutiny of academic or policy research standards”. In a conversation moderated by T.C.A. Sharad Raghavan , Pronab Sen and R. Nagaraj discuss the methodology in calculation of GDP growth. Edited excerpts:
Professor Nagaraj, was economic growth overestimated from 2011-12 to 2016-17? If so, by how much? In other words, which is more accurate: 7% growth, as estimated by the government, or 4.5%, as estimated by Dr. Subramanian?
•R. Nagaraj:Ever since the 2015 GDP rebasing, there have been many concerns about the veracity of the GDP estimates. With the debate progressing, more and more issues have come to light. Many of us who have intervened in this debate have looked at the specific issues with the revised methodology and revised databases. And we have been trying to say how these could have affected the output estimates.
•However, most critics have refrained from giving an alternative estimate given the complexities involved in the changes in the methodology and databases used. Therefore, most of us have only pointed out the problems with the methodology and the database, but have refrained from giving an alternative estimate of the GDP. We all agree that there is an overestimate, but by how much is something that we have refrained from estimating.
•Dr. Subramanian has given a very drastic estimate. He has said that GDP growth was 4.5% per year for six years from 2011-12. This is less than the official estimate by 2.5 percentage points, and has caused a lot of uproar in the media. Whether GDP growth was really lower by 2.5 percentage points, or lower by less than that or more than that, is something we are unable to be very specific about. This is because the methodology used by Dr. Subramanian can be questioned on many grounds. He has not addressed the methodological issues, but he has used the covariates of GDP and a regression methodology to arrive at this alternative estimate.
•Therefore, this number, though it is drastic and catches public imagination, can be questioned on many grounds. That’s the reason why there has been a lot of scepticism. If you ask me whether I agree with him, I won’t comment because I really don’t know. Unless I go into the details of the methodology, I would not be able to assess the merit of his claims. But what I would definitely say is that the growth rate seems overestimated. But by how much, I would not be able to give you an alternative number.
Dr. Sen, would you agree that growth is overestimated? And if it is, do you think it is by an amount that should be taken note of?
•Pronab Sen:I don’t even know whether growth is overestimated. This is a technical debate. It is a debate where people like Professor Nagaraj, who are critics, have written papers and the CSO [Central Statistics Office] has formally replied to them. It is a technical debate and it is healthy.
•The real issue is that most of them really say nothing about how the growth rate will be affected. The question that is being asked is whether the level of GDP was overestimated or not. So, when Professor Nagaraj says that there was an overestimation, my sense of the criticism that he and others have levelled seems to suggest that they are really talking about the levels and not the growth rate. I don’t think one can make a categorical statement about the growth rate.
•Dr. Subramanian’s paper is a different matter altogether. What he has done is that he has taken 17 indicators and found that they were very closely correlated with the GDP in the first period, that is, prior to 2011-12, and that most correlations broke down in the second period. This does not come as a surprise because a lot of the indicators that he has taken were used earlier in calculating GDP. They are no longer used now.
•When we use the corporate value figures now, that relationship seems to have broken down. Then he assumes that that relationship, had it continued into the second period, would have given a 4.5% growth, and then says that therefore there is a 2.5 percentage points overestimation. That is conceptually wrong. I don’t think it stands scrutiny theoretically.
•He then does a cross-country regression and shows that India was pretty much on the average of 70 countries in the earlier period. But in the second period, India is off. There are two problems with that argument. One, in the cross-country regression that he does, he doesn’t give us the confidence interval because we know you are not going to all be on a straight line. You are going to be off it by a certain amount and so there are confidence intervals. He has not actually told us whether in the second period we are beyond, outside the confidence zone. Until that information is given, we cannot say that it is an outlier.
•Two, what he should have mentioned is that almost all the countries in the 70 he has used are using volume indicators to calculate their GDP. And in doing that, they would be closely correlated with what we were doing earlier because we were also using volume indicators and would not be correlated in the second period.
•So, I think there are issues. Whether growth was being overestimated or not... my sense is that growth was not being overestimated earlier. That is, up to 2016-17. Subsequent to that, I think it is being overestimated. But by how much, I have no call.
Dr. Sen, you had mentioned that growth after 2016-17 might be overestimated. Why would this be the case after 2016-17, and is it a significant amount?
•PS:The reason for this is very simple. It is that we do not have direct data on the non-corporate sector. A critical assumption that is made in GDP calculations is that sector-wise growth rates are similar for the corporate and non-corporate sectors. So, you calculate corporate growth rates for each sector and you assume that for that sector, the same growth rate applies for the non-corporate side as well.
•Post-demonetisation, the non-corporate sector was known to have been affected much more adversely than the corporate sector. If you continue to use the same assumption that the two are behaving similarly, you are probably seriously overestimating the growth of the non-corporate sector. But this was not the case prior to demonetisation.
There are known issues with the way we are trying to estimate the size of the non-corporate sector. Do you feel that there are ways by which we can do things better?
•RN:One thing which has been ignored in the recent past in the debate is that with the introduction of the new GDP series, two things happened. One is that the size of the corporate sector got enlarged and, correspondingly, the size of the household or informal sector got reduced. A good part of this change was on account of shifting partnerships and proprietary firms from the unorganised sector to the corporate sector.
•Another thing that happened in the changed methodology is that earlier they would get estimates of the value added per worker using the NSSO [National Sample Survey Office] surveys and multiply it by the number of workers as estimated by some other NSSO surveys and get the value added in the unorganised sector. This old method was supposed to have been leading to underestimation, as many earlier committees had suggested, including C. Rangarajan’s National Statistical Commission.
•But in the new GDP series, the size of this has further reduced because they have used what they call the effective labour input method, where they have estimated a production function instead of using the average productivity. This has reduced the value added per worker in the unorganised sector. This again seems to have contributed to the reduction in the unorganised sector’s share. Whether production function should be used or not is debatable.
•Second, even if one uses the production function, it has to be used with care, because the production function is technically more complicated. And why one uses a particular production function and not something else is a very technical matter. And it appears to us that this was decided without adequate investigation into alternative methodologies.
•Therefore, the size of the household sector got reduced in this process. Both these issues together have contributed to the distortions in the new GDP series. So, this part is something that has not been very much in the current debate because the MCA issue seems much bigger and has dominated the current discussion.
•The unorganised sector also has problems but we know less about it, so we have not been talking too much about it.
Dr. Subramanian asked for a committee to be set up to take a relook at the methodology of the new series. Professor Nagaraj, would you agree that such a committee needs to be created?
•RN:Yes, this is a welcome suggestion. In fact, this is what I have been arguing since 2016. The late professor T.N. Srinivasan and I had a paper where we have argued that there must be an international expert committee to look into the entire thing. We also said that there should a statistical audit of the revision process. Because we don’t know where the problems have cropped up.
Dr. Sen, do you feel that a complete overhaul is needed or do you feel that if certain issues are fixed, that would make the system robust?
•PS:Let me first get to the question of whether the statistical system is aware of the infirmities. By and large, I think they are. As far as having an expert committee is concerned, we have a system called the Advisory Committee on National Accounts Statistics, which is in fact a very high-level expert body. Professor Nagaraj is a member of this body. It is the empowered body for all decisions regarding national accounts in India. If you actually leave out the members of these, you are not going to find too many Indian experts left to form this expert group that Dr. Subramanian is talking about. Then what you are effectively saying is that you have to get an international body of experts to come in. And this is not a statistical issue, this is more an issue of the politics of international relations. So, one needs to be a little careful on this account.
