📰 Making agricultural market reforms successful
Consistency in Central policy, complementary reforms and a collaborative Centre-State approach are necessary
•The recent reforms in agricultural marketing have brought a sea change in policy. The removal of restrictions under the Essential Commodities Act (ECA) should help attract private investment in agriculture and help farmers of cereals, pulses, oilseeds, onion and potato, who have been adversely affected by the policy regime hitherto that discouraged private investment. The two new ordinances are expected to enable inter-State trade and promote contract farming, thereby providing a large number of options to farmers.
•However, there are several difficulties that need to be addressed before the full benefits of these policies are realised. The first one is what the behavioural economists call the ‘time-inconsistency’ problem, or in simple terms, the policy credibility problem. This situation arises when a decision maker’s preferences change over time in such a way that the preferences are inconsistent at different points in time. Why is this problem relevant in the present context? Because the policy signals are not very clear in the last few years as relates to agricultural marketing, as we will see below.
•In 2016, the electronic national agricultural market (e-NAM) was launched with a lot of fanfare. The e-NAM was intended to be a market-based mechanism for efficient price discovery by the farmers. In the first phase, 585 markets across 16 States and 2 Union Territories were covered. States needed to amend their respective Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Acts to put in place three prerequisites for the success of this programme — a single licence across the State; a single-point levy of the market fee; and electronic auctioning in all the markets. Several States could not or did not carry out these amendments and the e-NAM proved to be far less effective than desired.
Policy reversals
•As a result, the government reverted back to public price support by launching an ambitious programme, PM-AASHA, in September 2018. The main objective of this programme was to provide an assured price to farmers that ensured a return of at least 50% more than the cost of cultivation. The programme was confined to pulses and oilseeds to limit the fiscal costs, although many other crops, which did not receive the benefits of the MSP-procurement system, also needed this coverage. Public procurement, deficiency payments and private procurement were the main planks of this programme. However, only public procurement was carried out in a meaningful way. Deficiency payments were only implemented on a pilot basis in Madhya Pradesh and private procurement was not initiated, even on a pilot basis, in any State. However, the initial budgetary outlay did not match the level of ambition of the programme. An outlay of only Rs. 4721 crore was made in 2018-19. A study by the Institute of Economic Growth at the time showed that the programme needed a much larger outlay to provide comprehensive coverage. The initial outlay further dwindled to Rs. 321 crore in 2019-2020 and only Rs. 500 crore have been earmarked in 2020-2021. In addition to the PM-AASHA programme, two Model Acts were formulated by the Central government in 2017 and 2018 to promote agricultural marketing and contract farming in States. States were required to legislate these Model Acts. However, progress has been tardy and many States have not adopted the Model Acts. This uninspiring performance of PM-AASHA necessitated a more radical and direct approach. Thus evolved the PM-KISAN, a direct cash transfer programme, in the interim Budget of 2019-2020 (February 2019). This programme involved a fixed payment of Rs. 6,000 per annum to each farm household with a budgetary outlay of Rs. 75,000 crore. This programme has worked reasonably well so far with many States topping up the amount at their end. With the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, improving the market functioning received renewed attention. E-NAM has been scaled up to cover 415 more markets, farmers have been allowed to sell and transport directly from registered warehouses and Farmer Produce Organisations (FPOs) and app-based transport services have been devised. Taking this thrust further, the government announced a slew of reforms on May 15, including the major marketing reforms mentioned above.
•However, some of the issues that impeded the success of the earlier initiatives still remain. The frequent flip-flops in farm policy — from a market-based e-NAM to a public funded PM-AASHA and now back to market-based measures — may not inspire much confidence in the minds of private investors about the continuance of the present policies. This may result in the investors adopting a wait-and-watch approach.
Better coordination
•The second issue is the Centre-State and State-State relations. Although the Ordinances were passed by the Central Government using the constitutional provisions, the implementation of the same vests with the States. Also, inter-State trade involves movement of goods across the State boundaries. Thus, coordination between the Central and the State governments, and also among various States becomes crucial. Also, the States must have faced several problems in legislating and implementing the earlier Model Acts. Thus, the Centre must engage with the States about these constraints in order to iron out the potential problems in implementation of the ordinances. Such a consultative and conciliatory approach will also minimise friction between the Centre and the States when the ordinances come up before Parliament.
•The third important issue is the multiple market failures and the resultant inter-linkage of rural markets. Absence or failure of credit and insurance markets may lead a farmer to depend upon the local input dealer or the middleman to meet his/her farming needs. This, in turn, may tie him to these intermediaries and constrain his choice of output markets. Similarly, the widespread restrictions on land leasing in many States lead to inefficient scale of production. Thus, reforms in the output market alone are not sufficient and must be supplemented and complemented with liberalisation of the lease market and better access to credit and insurance markets.
•In conclusion, consistency in policy, collaborative approach and complementary reforms are necessary for the success of the recent agricultural market reforms.
India’s space vision also needs to address global governance, regulatory and arms control issues
•Outer space has been the arena of some of the most memorable technology demonstrations. Russia’s Sputnik and the U.S.’s Apollo 11 were metaphors of geopolitical competition. For India, Chandrayaan and Mangalyaan were symbols of national pride. Today, outer space no longer captures our mind space in the way cyberspace does.
•Several space events planned well in advance have proceeded amidst the COVID-19 pandemic without much attention. The launch of missions to Mars by China and the U.S. along with the UAE’s Mars orbiter; the first astronaut trip to orbit on a commercial enterprise built by Space X; the completion of the Chinese ‘BeiDou’ satellite navigation system; and the U.S. Space Command statement that Russia conducted a “non-destructive test of a space-based anti-satellite weapon” all portray a trend that outer space is witnessing a welter of new activity.
Growth of the space industry
•Technological changes augur well for the peaceful use of outer space. The price tag for reaching low Earth orbit has declined by a factor of 20 in a decade. NASA’s space shuttle cost about $54,500 per kg; now, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 advertises a cost of $2,720 per kg. In a decade, the cost could be less than $100 per kg. It not only enhances human space travel possibilities by leveraging new commercial capabilities but will usher in applications dismissed earlier as science fiction.
•According to a Bank of America Report, the $350 billion space market today will touch $2.7 trillion by 2050. Space industries are likely to follow a path akin to the software industry. When Apple allowed developers to design apps for the iPhone, it unleashed innovations that put more technology in the hands of common people and transformed lives. Starlink, the constellation being constructed by SpaceX to provide global Internet access, plans more than 10,000 mass-produced small satellites in low Earth orbit. It hopes to transcend the digital divide and provide everyone, everywhere access to services such as distance education and telemedicine. Amazon’s Project Kuiper received U.S. Federal Communications Commission approvals for more than 3,000 micro-satellites. In a decade, 80,000 such satellites could be in space compared to less than 3,000 at present. Companies such as Planet, Spire Global and Iceye are using orbital vantage points to collect and analyse data to deliver fresh insights in weather forecasting, global logistics, crop harvesting and disaster response. Space could prove attractive for high-tech manufacturing too. In short, an exciting new platform is opening up for entrepreneurs. However, what is technologically feasible is not easily achievable. The challenges to fulfilling the potential of space are many.
Challenges in fulfilling potential
•First, as outer space becomes democratised, commercialised and crowded, the multilateral framework for its governance is becoming obsolescent. Space law is a product of a golden age of two decades — the 1960s and 1970s. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 enshrines the idea that space should be “the province of all mankind” and “not subject to national appropriation by claims of sovereignty”. The Rescue Agreement, Space Liability Convention, and the Space Registration Convention expanded provisions of the Outer Space Treaty. The Moon Treaty of 1979 was not ratified by major space-faring nations. Space law does not have a dispute settlement mechanism, is silent on collisions and debris, and offers insufficient guidance on interference with others’ space assets. These gaps heighten the potential for conflict in an era of congested orbits and breakneck technological change.
•Second, the legal framework is state-centric, placing responsibility on states alone. However, non-state entities are now in the fray for commercial space exploration and utilisation. Some states are providing frameworks for resource recovery through private enterprises based on the notion that this is not expressly forbidden for non-state actors. U.S. President Donald Trump’s Executive Order on Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources of April 2020 falls in this category. According to NASA, the asteroid named 16 Psyche is so rich in heavy metals that it is worth $10,000 quadrillion. The incentive to proceed is evident. On the other hand, some scholars and governments view this as skirting the principle of national non-appropriation, violating the spirit if not the letter of the existing space law. The lack of alignment of domestic and international normative frameworks risks a damaging free-for-all competition for celestial resources involving actors outside the space framework.
•Third, strategists extol the virtues of holding the high ground. Space is the highest ground. States are investing in military space systems for communications, navigation, and reconnaissance purposes, so as to ensure operability of a range of capabilities. Reliance of militaries on satellite systems means that space assets become potential targets. So investment in technologies that can disrupt or destroy space-based capabilities is under way. The space arms race is difficult to curb, especially since almost all space technologies have military applications. For example, satellite constellations are commercial but governments could acquire their data to monitor military movements.
•Despite concerns about military activity in outer space for long, not much progress has been made in addressing them. The UN General Assembly passes a resolution on Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space since 1982. Chinese- and Russian-backed Treaty proposals were initiated in 2008 and updated in 2014. For various legal, technical, and political reasons these have not advanced at the Conference on Disarmament. Groups of Governmental Experts have not helped in making progress. The EU’s International Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities has not gained traction. The current geopolitical situation does not hold hope for addressing concerns of a space arms race.
Need for a space legislation
•India has invested enormous resources in its space programme through the Indian Space Research Organisation. More importantly, our space assets are crucial for India’s development. India’s future plans are ambitious. These include a landing on the Moon; the first Indian solar observatory; the first crewed orbital spaceflight mission; and installation of a modular space station in 2030. This calendar is designed to establish India as a major space-faring nation by the end of the decade.
•The proposed involvement of private players and the creation of an autonomous body IN-SPACe (Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre) under the Department of Space for permitting and regulating activities of the private sector are welcome efforts. However, the space environment that India faces requires us to go beyond meeting technical milestones. We need a space legislation enabling coherence across technical, legal, commercial, diplomatic and defence goals. Our space vision also needs to address global governance, regulatory and arms control issues. As space opens up our space vision needs broadening too.
📰 Perils of prematurely imparted literacy
By making foundational literacy and numeracy a target of early schooling, we will stress further an embattled childhood
•Overhaul has a nice connotation. The smooth first run of one’s childhood bicycle after it got overhauled is a lasting memory. When people say that a system has become so bad that it needs an overhaul, they actually believe that such a thing is possible, that someone can do it. In popular imagination, an overhaul also carries an association with radical improvement. Machines improve quite radically after an overhaul, but social systems like education behave more like living beings as they carry legacies and tendencies rooted in the wider social ethos. These tendencies need to be studied and recognised before radical remedies are administered for improvement.
•The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 offers to revise and revamp the system of education. Such a promise carries great public appeal because a lot of people feel quite fed up with the system. Any doubt about the need for an overhaul in education today is likely to be stigmatised as a sign of conservatism. Disruptors and out-of-the-box solutions have been in the air for some time.
•The National Knowledge Commission (NKC-2008) had set the stage for this kind of popular radicalism. We now have a fuller script. At times, it falls back on older, tired ideas, such as the three-language formula. It evinces approval for the recent trajectory of ideas like quantifiable basis for seeking credit ratings and rankings, outcome-based assessment, technology-driven governance, and so on. They are treated as pointers to a bolder agenda. Little room is available for doubting, let alone debating, the impact such measures have had so far.
New break-up
•One significant shift NEP proposes is in the re-organisation of elementary education. As of now, it comprises eight years of schooling starting with Grade 1 at age six as Article 45 of the Constitution envisaged. The Right to Education (RTE) act promulgated a decade ago treats these eight years as a composite stage, consisting of five years of primary and three years of upper-primary education. NEP offers a surgical procedure which will graft the first two primary grades on to three years of preschool education. On the face of it, this idea looks great as it starts a child’s educational journey from age three instead of six.
•The plan also implies a historic break from the system as envisaged in the Kothari report (1964-1966) which recommended the present 10+2 system. NEP proposes a new structure. Instead of 10+2, we will now have a 5+3+4 system, in which the first five years include three years of preschool education (starting at age three), followed by Grades 1 and 2 of the primary school. Although a wide spectrum of goals is mentioned for the preschool years, the overarching focus is on making children ‘school-ready’ in the context of reading, writing and arithmetic. The term used in NEP is ‘foundational literacy and numeracy’. A separate section is devoted to it, underlining its importance as a ‘prerequisite to learning’. It sounds great, but let us stop to study its implications.
•Visit a nursery in any part of the country and you will inevitably find three- to four-year olds reciting the English alphabet and numbers. The idea that learning begins with the alphabet and numbers is very popular indeed. Many people believe that there is nothing wrong in introducing a child of three to reading and writing. If you express some doubt about such an idea, some people might agree to delay this plan by a year or so, but that is the limit. The reasoning behind this belief is that if reading and writing are the two fundamental skills a child will need to do well at school, what is the harm in cultivating these skills from the earliest possible age?
•Indeed, the faith in early acquisition of literacy and numeracy extends to the feeling that any delay on this front will harm the child’s development. Nothing could be more contrary to truth although we must acknowledge that the matter is still regarded by many as a subject of debate. The key issue in the debate is our concept of reading itself. There is a sharp division among perspectives on what constitutes reading; more specifically: how is reading learnt?
•The older perspective is that reading starts with familiarity with the alphabet. According to this view, the child must learn to recognise individual letters and their sounds first, and then move towards recognising simple words by recognising the letters that comprise it. This view has prevailed in human history for so long that scientific research on how our eyes and mind process a written text has made no decisive difference in countries like ours. This body of research has demonstrated that a child’s search for meaning is a far sounder basis for learning to read than mechanical practices like letter recognition and associating letters with their names and sound values. Prematurely acquired literacy can be harmful in that it creates a habit, difficult to remedy later, of ignoring the message.
•In daily life, we see plenty of evidence of such a habit. Reading without relating to the text or to its author is far more common than using one’s ability to read in order to make sense of a text. Despite education, many literates develop no interest in reading. An introduction to the alphabet and being drilled for letter recognition at a very young age is a major source of reading without deriving any meaning or showing any interest.
•Similar harm is done to writing when it is acquired before one needs it. Writing is basically a means of conveying one’s ideas to someone else. It becomes a meaningful activity when an intended audience begins to matter for the small child. If no need is felt for an audience, acquisition of writing becomes merely the attainment of a mechanical skill.
•What applies to reading and writing is equally true of prematurely acquired numeracy. Mathematics offers to the child a means to make sense of the world, but the desire to relate to different objects arises with the widening of experience and engagement. Prolonged drills to habituate the child to chant numbers aloud, and then to learn how to manipulate them damages the bridge that connects numbers with real things or matters of interest and curiosity. By starting too early, the need for such a bridge is precluded. This has long-term consequences for learning mathematics and for perceiving it as an attractive subject.
Culture of speed
•A culture of speed pervades all spheres of school life. Middle-class parents set the norm for this culture by pushing their infants to consume the various products sold in the pedagogy market. Digital equipment is the latest addition to the educational toys that have long been favoured over cottage toys which quietly represent the wider world and serve as a symbolic bridge to what all lies outside the home.
•The school’s long shadow now extends to the home, and parents sigh with relief when they secure their children’s admission to a nursery in the third year of their life, if not earlier. Changing family norms and social conditions make the transfer of the young child from home to a nursery inevitable. Although nurseries routinely use the rhetoric of play-way, their programmes are mostly a downward extension of the school. This social reality makes early childhood education in its present form a mixed blessing. By promoting foundational literacy and numeracy as a key educational target of early schooling, we are likely to stress further an already embattled childhood.
