PCI needs to strengthen its roots before branching out

Photo Credit: The Hindu

In the midst of talks about bringing electronic media under the regulatory framework of Press Council of India, there is an urgent need to simultaneously consider empowering the statutory body to be able to formulate and enforce a common code of practice for journalists.

The PCI was set up in 1966 with the objective of preserving the freedom of press and improving and maintaining the standards of press in India. The PCI currently functions under the Press Council (Amendment) Act of 1970 that majorly changed provisions with regard to the selection and appointment of members in the Council. It has five members from the Parliament- three from Lok Sabha and two from Rajya Sabha-apart from the Chairman and 23 other members. Since journalistic standards cannot be maintained without regulating journalistic practices in electronic and social media, it is imperative that the PCI should exercise regulatory authority over all mediums involved in news reporting and publishing.

However, without sufficient authority to penalise and take disciplinary actions against deviant journalistic practices in print media, it is not equipped to tackle press excesses effectively in other media as well. Merely admonishing malpractice and imposing fines has proven to be insufficient to maintain journalistic standards within the fraternity. The members of the Council should thus be empowered enough to take disciplinary actions jointly against journalistic malpractices.

The argument of a self-regulating press fails in the wake of rampant malpractices including paid news, selective or fake reporting, extortion, blackmailing, etc. Secondly regulation does not imply control without accountability.

Rather, in order to avoid abuse and misuse of power vested in an independent regulatory body, clear metrics or quantitative parameters can be used to determine the degree of deviance by media firms. This includes particulars about funding received by the media organisation from clients buying media space or time slot for advertisements as well as ownership patterns in media. Also, maintaining records of news coverage might also help in identifying interest groups involved in malpractices like paid news.

For any disciplinary action taken against any firm thus, definite parameters for taking such an action need to be specified in written and made public whatsoever to ensure transparency and accountability of the statutory body.

Influence of Cross Media Ownership

Freedom of expression comes with the space for multiple opinions and views. With cross media ownership, where a conglomerate owns multiple channels of communication like newspapers, electronic media and digital media, this freedom rather shrinks since there is concentration of the circulation capacity of a conglomerate to disseminate one opinion. Moreover, contrary to popular belief of multiple views available from multiple sources, content is majorly determined and shaped by news trends generally initiated by one source but eventually gaining visibility in other sources as well with marginal differences. While this might be constructive and useful in some cases, there are chances of replicating a publicity gimmick that is used as a marketing strategy by most advertising agencies. Therefore, one needs to examine as to what inspires or rather what interests lead to publishing and circulation of a news report.

Need for alternate modes of Revenue generation

Smaller newspapers and dailies struggle to survive in the market as the industry mostly recovers costs and derives profit from advertisements. This implies that smaller newspapers and dailies with poor revenues and lower ad rates have to function with limited resources too, which in turn has an effect on the quality of news reports.

Therefore, while prescribing a common standard for the industry, there is a need to delve into fixing a common ad rate subject to market fluctuations. Moreover, other traceable and justifiable mediums of revenue generation can also be explored.  While India can boast of a flourishing newspaper industry at a time when markets are declining in the United States and United Kingdom, one need not neglect another trend, that is, the growth of media and entertainment marked by an increase in advertising spend. In many ways, the growth of the former can be said to have played a role in contributing to the latter phenomenon.

Clash of interests

In terms of identification of interests in the media industry as such, there seems to be contradictory forces operating simultaneously. In other words, a service oriented philanthropic ideal and its practice co-exists with commercial interests. Wherever the scale shifts media, by virtue of the space it occupies in the process of dialogue and communication, cannot naively eschew responsibility of the content produced and circulated.

Conclusion

Lastly, media has to be honest in acknowledging that to be misinformed is worse than being uninformed. Consequently, misinformation needs to be made liable to prosecution through regulation from an independent regulatory body on the basis of clearly formulated and defined metrics.

Thus, in order to have any real impact on industry practices and standards, political thrust- both within the PCI and on the Parliament floors- is required to prioritise and empower the PCI first and then include electronic media within its ambit.

Pallavi Ghosh

 

A Rural Housing Policy that is missing!!

A roof over the head is a basic right of every human being. For those who do not have one, it is a

dream. Home does not only provide protection, it also has symbolic significance in a person’s life. In addition to security, owning a house adds to the status, dignity and affects the social, physical and psychological well being of a person.

India, with its predominantly rural populace, faces a unique challenge in addressing adequate housing for all. The XII^th five year plan has estimated the current rural housing shortage at 44 million houses, out of which 90 per cent of the rural housing shortage are in the BPL categories. Yet India does not have a Rural Housing Policy!

Mismatch between the availability of housing stock and number of households is one aspect of housing inadequacy. The other aspect relates to the mismatch between the desired and actual quality. Kuchcha or semi –pucca house with thatched roofs, mud walls, no cooking space and poor ventilation describe the living conditions of a poor man. According to the National Family Health Survey (2000), only 19% of the rural population lives in pucca houses, while the remaining live in kaccha and semi-pucca houses. Poor living conditions have direct bearing on the health of the rural poor.

The Housing Policy of 1998 which is supposed to address the housing needs of both the rural and the urban population has shown considerable bias towards the urban needs.  It is futile to challenge the fact that the needs, aspirations and demography of the urban and the rural are dissimilar.  To ensure parity in development, the housing needs of the rural areas have to be addressed separately which is possible only when India has an exclusive Rural Housing Policy.

Government initiative in rural housing has been through the subsidy based Indira Awas Yojna Scheme (IAY) and similar other schemes. There are also state wise housing schemes targeted to different target groups like the SCs, STs and BPL families, such as, Jharkhand Government’s Birsa Awaas Yojana and Siddho-Kanu Awas Yojna, Rajasthan’s Mukhya Mantri Gramin BPL Awaas Yojana, Tamil Nadu’s Kaliagnar Housing Scheme and two schemes in Karnataka namely Basava Vasathi Yojana and Ambedkar Housing Scheme, to name a few.

All these housing schemes vary in terms of the target audience, implementing agencies, funding opportunities and unit cost of the house. However the participation of all the States has not been equal. In some cases, States do not have separate State level agencies for taking up the Rural Housing Programmes, in other cases, funds taken from HUDCO are passed on as loans to beneficiaries but the cost is ultimately borne on the budget as the recovery rate is very poor.   Similarly the IAY scheme which has been beneficial in several ways, have many shortcomings like inadequacy of space, unit cost, selection of beneficiaries, ownership issues, lack of people’s and other stakeholders participation. Building the capacity of beneficiaries to build their house and enabling them to construct disaster resistant houses have been ignored under the IAY.  The housing programmes have loopholes and have not been able to achieve its targets to reduce the gap between the demand and supply of housing units.

 

Apart from the physical structure of a house, what people also require are – electricity, sewage system, toilets and safe drinking water. Thus there is a need to have a comprehensive Rural Housing Policy that would address the shortage of dwelling units along with the bleak habitat conditions of rural India by providing decent and affordable housing to the rural poor, linking Housing Finance Institutions and Micro Finance Institutions with the housing programmes, reorganising delivery mechanisms and bringing legal reforms to facilitate access to land titles for the poor. The Policy should focus on strengthening the capacities of the people living in rural areas and ensure that the Panchayats are successfully engaged in implementing the housing schemes. In addition, the housing policy should promote the development of micro enterprises that would open employment opportunities for villagers. The Rural Housing Policy should not only meet the demand of dwelling units but also make sure that these dwelling units are of live-able quality and resistant to nature’s susceptibility. Promotion of locally available environment friendly construction materials and technology should also be an integral part of the Policy.

Investment in rural housing will have a high multiplier effect on income and employment of the rural people, therefore reinforce Government’s strategy towards inclusive economic growth. It is estimated that overall employment generation in the economy due to additional investment in the housing/construction is eight times the direct employment. (IIM-Ahmedabad Study, 2000)

 

As rightly said by Mahatma Gandhi “India lives in her villages” and “If the village perishes India will perish too”, therefore only an integrated Rural Housing Policy can achieve desired results in building India of our dreams.

Abhishikta Roy

Deconstructing Domestic Spending & International Assistance to End Poverty

1.2 billion people in the world today live beneath the international poverty line on less than US$1.25 a day. Out of the 507 million people living in this extreme poverty in South Asia, 400 million are Indians.

Development Initiatives is think tank that believes that we can end this extreme poverty by 2030. To do that we have to:

·Target aid at the poorest,

·Mobilise all available resources and

·Get the maximum value out of every dollar.

Their report entitled Investments to End Poverty maps all resources coming in and going out of developing economies. If we can better understand what resources, domestic and international are available to us, then we can better decide when and how to deploy them in order for it to have the greatest impact.

Judith Randel, Executive Director Development Initiatives says, “If we are serious about ending poverty we have to move from a vision to a time-tabled reality.” On the domestic front, economic growth will play a critical role in reducing poverty but, according to Randel, the data shows that even current patterns of growth will not be enough.

Despite recent slowdowns, since 1991 the Indian economy has grown exponentially. The World Bank even moved India to a “lower middle income” country from a “low income” one in 2007.  But, no matter where the poverty line is placed, this continues to be a country of rampant poverty and vast inequities. And this dichotomy is in accordance with global trends in poverty.

A 2010 study by economist Andy Sumner at the Institute of Development Studies titled “The New Bottom Billion” found that where two decades ago, 93 percent of the world’s poorest lived in low-income countries, today nearly 75% of them (1 billion people), live in middle-income economies.

It would therefore be imprudent to depend on economic growth alone and we need to have a deeper understanding of all the resources at our disposal if we are to make the most effective use of them.

Domestic government spending per poor person is the most important indicator as to whether enough is being done to lift people out of extreme poverty. Most poor people live in countries with very low government spending per capita that is nowhere near enough to end poverty.

Government spending in India per capita, at purchasing power parity was US$864.1 in 2011. On the other hand, China spent nearly US$2000 and Brazil spent over US$2500 during that same year.

 

India still spends only 0.9 percent of gross domestic product on health care, among the lowest in the world, and only 3 percent on education.

Not only does this imply that not enough domestic resources are being spent on lifting people out of poverty in India, it also dictates the kind of international aid India has access to. It is only where government expenditure is higher, that international aid flows are also larger and more diverse.

The report deconstructs the kinds of financial aid being provided so that a country can see what funds are available to it, for what purposes and who controls how they will be used. This is crucial for 2 reasons: First, each donor offers a different package. For e.g., 2/3rds of Italy’s aid stays in Italy while most of Denmark’s aid, goes to the recipient country. Secondly, the bundle that each country receives is also different. Togo and Afghanistan for example appear equally aid dependent but while most of what Togo receives is in the form of debt relief that stays in the donor country, the bulk of Afghanistan’s aid actually reaches Afghanistan as cash, projects and technical help.

Governments that spend more see a greater diversity of funds flow into the country—not just aid, but also lending, remittances and foreign direct investment, because better-run countries are able to spend more and have the capacity to attract other sources of funds.

More mature economies like Brazil and China, where resource use is more effective and efficient, rely on direct investment and lending. Africa, where government spending per person is less than $500, per year depends most on aid which accounts for nearly 70% of the financial resources from abroad.

According to the report, remittances remain the largest resource flow into India; followed at some distance by long terms loan and then FDI.

59% of Overseas Donor Aid (ODA) to India goes to just 3 sectors – infrastructure, health and education. Three –quarters of all aid is in the form of loans and equity investments which is much higher percentage than that of the average recipient. Health is the only sector where other types of aid, cash in grants, in particular prevail. Funding to these sectors is also highly concentrated. International Donor Aid, Japan, the UK and Germany account for most of it.

Though ODA volumes to India have increased over 2000-2011 from US$3.6 billion to US$5.4 billion making India the 3^rd largest recipient of aid in 2011, ODA per poor person has actually decreased.

A slew of recent pro poor legislation have been passed by the Government of India but unless they translate into increased per poor person spending in the country we will be unable to see a sharp decline in poverty. A simultaneous challenge is how to attract greater diversity and flexibility in the kind of aid packages being offered to us.

By Gayatri Verma

 

 

 

 

Defining Poverty and BPL: A Persistent Policy Challenge in India

Photo Source: INQUIRER.net

Poverty in India is believed to be widespread, and defining poverty and identifying poor has always been India’s persistent challenge. The concerns around the definitional clarity of the poverty and Below Poverty Line (BPL) has been well acknowledged decades back by the prominent visionaries of our nation like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Dadabhai Naoroji and later by the policy making institutions like Planning Commission.

National Planning Committee under Pandit Nehru recognised the prevailing poverty and thus made an effort in 1936 with a policy objective to “ensure an adequate standard of living for the masses, to get rid of the appalling poverty of the people”. Towards this end, the Committee defined goals for the total population in terms of nutrition (involving a balanced diet of 2400 to 2800 calories per adult worker), clothing (30 yards per capita per annum) and housing (100 sq. ft per capita).

However, even after realising and accepting the concerns for so long, an inconsistency has been recognised between the conceptual level of understanding and the practical ways of estimating poverty and the identification of poor households. At conceptual level, definition of poverty is involved both in the estimation of proportion of population living in poverty (a macro level estimate) and the identification of poor households for targeted delivery of various poverty alleviation programmes. In practice, however, the two approaches have followed different paths. The overall estimation of poverty is based on the data available from NSSO’s (National Sample Survey Office) all-India sample survey of household consumption expenditure, whereas identification of poor households requires a census, which necessarily goes by visible and quickly assessable indicators of level of living. Though the poverty ratio majorly depicted the falling trend in both rural and urban India from 1973-74 to 2009-10, the total population under poverty in both rural and urban areas kept on increasing (from 321.3 million to 354.68 million) throughout the same period, as per the Planning commission data.

Though, it is well accepted that till India’s economic liberalisation policy, poverty was an instrument to ensure basic necessities like food, but in the post liberalisation phase with greater accessibility, the idea of poverty gradually underwent changes. Much later in the year 1999-2000, NSSO introduced a method of Mixed Reference Period (MRP) measuring consumption of five low-frequency items (clothing, footwear, durables, education and institutional health expenditure) over the previous year (365 days recall period), and all other items over the previous 30 days, in order to get a stable expenditure pattern for non-food items. A poor himself defines his poverty more broadly by including lack of education, health, housing, empowerment, humiliation, employment, personal security and more. Thus considering the relevance of the factors, other than income taken into account even by a poor person to define their poverty, it becomes even more significant to capture the housing conditions, work profile and other indicators of social and economic status of the households, in order to rightly benefit the vulnerable & needful masses of the country. A study by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative using a Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) found that there were 650 million people (53.7% of population) living in poverty in India.

In regard to the concerns raised related to the identification of the households and the relevance of the factors other than income contributing to poverty, the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) was launched on 29th June 2011 in the country. It is being carried out by the respective State/Union Territory Governments with the financial and technical support of the Government of India for the identification of BPL households in both rural and urban areas and would generate information on housing conditions, work profile and other indicators of social and economic status of the households in both the areas. This data could be used to identify the vulnerable or poor households. The census comprises of exclusion, inclusion and deprivation criteria approved by the Cabinet.

Thus it is being realised over the period of time at policy level that the process of inclusion and benefiting the masses with the poverty alleviation programme could be a possible solution since, the evolution in the methodology of BPL census has resulted in reducing the margin for inclusion/ exclusion significantly. Despite such drastic moves, there still remains continuous attempt amongst Indian policy makers to look for an ideal definition of poverty.

Recently the Rangrajan Committee (formed by Planning Commission in 2012 to review the existing methodology of estimating poverty and expected to submit their report by 2014) was formed to redefine poverty and examine Tendulkar methodology. The report is expected to give a new definition of poverty and based on that country will re-estimate the number of people below the poverty line.

-Shruti Issar

"Water-Stressed" India

Photo Credit: USAID

The data released by the National Sample Survey Organization has once again brought the focus on the abysmal state of drinking water and sanitation in India. According to the report more than half of rural households in India don’t have toilet infrastructure and drinking water facilities within their homes.  Even the Census 2011 data released last year showed that 36 per cent households still have to fetch water from a source located within 500 metres in rural areas and 100 metres in urban areas.

The UN report on “Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation-2012” reported that India houses 16 per cent of the world's population as compared to only 4 per cent of its water resources. 45 percent of India's children are stunted and 600,000 children under five years of age die each year largely because of inadequate water supply and poor sanitation.

In this context, UNICEF came up with the report “Water in India: Situation and Prospects” with the aim to contribute to efforts by the Government of India and partners to manage water resources more effectively during implementation of the Twelfth Five Year Plan. According to the report, the total utilizable water in India is higher than the current usage of water. However, because of the spatial variation in distribution of water, 71 per cent of India's water resources are available to only 36 per cent of the area. The current levels of service provision in many locations do not meet the minimum rights, and the monitoring of water supply is done in terms of coverage and not end use. Another reason for water crisis is the increase in population which has resulted in a reduction in per capita average water availability in the country. The national per capita water resource availability has declined considerably over the years and of particular concern is the disparity in water footprints of the rich and the poor.

So what is the way forward? Given these social realities of India, the report argues “that redefinition of needs has to become part of public debate, including how much water should be given free, how much should be at an affordable price, and to whom should this subsidy go?”There is sustained pressure from various quarters of society to transform the role of government from service provider to facilitator so it can provide the requisite level of financial and policy support to communities and community-based institutions. Today one of the biggest challenges for India lies in devising a “sensible mix of decentralized responsibilities and authority to local institutions and also providing large-scale investment to redirect the surplus water to water deficit areas.”

The advent of the Independent Regulatory Authorities or IRAs at the state level are new mechanisms which are expected to usher in sweeping fundamental and comprehensive changes in governance in this sector.

India can also explore the prospects and challenges of public-private partnership in water management. There have been a few success stories of PPP model but there are concerns about their ability to deliver services without interfering with the idea of human right to water. Further, the water privatization agenda in the PPP model needs better scrutiny from the water pricing perspective.

New models for community’s self- regulation and capacity building by civil society can impact the overall framework of people-centred development with more political and financial powers for the community to implement water-related projects.

India has an enormous governance deficit when dealing with changing water scenarios. With the overlapping powers and responsibilities of central and state governments, the overall sustainable vision for water development, conservation and management remains missing.

Understanding that there are social differences within communities, water is also a social factor and its access is socially constructed. Therefore overall water coverage data does not give an understanding of who is accessing and who is not. Further disaggregation of data at household and caste\community level will be a better indicator of individual's water access. Also de-linking water from land tenure may be the first step towards looking at water from a much more equitable lens.

Amrutha Jose Pampackal and Hansa Kaul

Medical Tourism in India

Source: gtp headlines

India had witnessed as many as 850,000 medical tourists in 2011 and is likely to provide its medical services to an astounding 3,200,000 medical tourists by 2015, according to an ASSOCHAM estimate.

Medical tourism came into being as there emerged a phenomenon wherein people began to travel across the globe for medical treatment. The term, medical tourism, was coined by mass media and travel agencies that took note of this mushrooming phenomenon.

India, for its part, has had a rich history of providing medical services to people from all corners of the world.  India’s ayurvedic treatment and yogic practices have always been attractive. However, in the current scenario, India along with a bunch of other South Asian countries have been drawing millions from European countries for being able to provide technologically advanced treatment that are at par with global standards in a timely manner and at affordable rates. Medical tourism is turning out to be a lucrative opportunity for most developing countries including Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and India to earn revenue and improve economic growth. India is said to have the potential to attract 1 million health tourists per annum which is likely draw US$ 5 billion to the economy. The CII-McKinsey, in its report, had suggested earlier that medical tourism would fetch $2 billion by 2012 instead of $ 333 million as estimated in 2006-07.

Despite the promising potential, medical tourism has attracted some criticism both from the service providers as well the consumers. Currently, only private hospitals are involved in providing medical services to tourists. The public sector hospitals lag behind, although the CII has been making efforts to make public hospitals medical tourism sites. There is also the view that medical tourism caters to the elite from abroad for whom the cost and charges are easily affordable. But for a mostly poor nation like India, medical treatment remains a challenge. Despite having free medical services in certain cases in government hospitals, it does not cover all ailments and delivery mechanisms continue to be hostile in many cases.Thirdly, critics feel that if public hospitals are also included in providing medical services to foreigners, it will lead to neglecting the poor and needy. On the other hand tourists face difficulty with regard to accessing reliable information about hospitals, understanding local language, reporting fraud or any contention to the correct authority, etc.

As far as policy is concerned, India lacks a specific policy that deals with medical tourism. Nevertheless official measures have been taken in order to encourage medical tourism like relaxation of visa norms, issuing special medical visas, recognising the economic potential of medical tourism in the National Health Policy, offshore campaigning and marketing, etc. The absence of a regulatory body and an organised structure for medical tourism needs to be dealt with in depth as well.  Consequently, there is an increasing need to formulate an inclusive policy on medical tourism keeping in mind both- the consumers as well as providers.

Pallavi Ghosh and Neha Singh