May 2009 Edition
The untold recession story
Civil Society News
New Delhi
THE downturn has seen banks go broke and markets crash. It has crippled
giant corporations and knocked high net worth individuals. Software
engineers are out of work and even fashion models can't seem to find
assignments. Real estate magnates suddenly have more debts to pay than
they ever told anyone about.
It is a story of hard luck all around. But you haven't heard everything as yet.
Far down the chain, people who never really managed to be a part of the
market but somehow got linked to it are now bracing themselves for the
impact of recession. A remote village school, a clinic in the middle of
nowhere, a shelter for the homeless could be shutting
down for want of funding. Similarly, small groups
creating awareness of human rights, gender equality
and the access to information could find their sources
of support vanishing.
As businesses fail and jobs are lost, it is but natural that there will be fewer donors left in the world. Some money has already been committed so that won't go away. But after that what will happen is anybody's guess.
An extended bull run created a euphoria that made"giving" as easy as pulling in those extra bucks. Ever rising valuations and expanding credit provided an ongoing sense of plenty. There was also a sense of guilt. After all, half the world remained in poverty.
Now the opposite is happening. Fortunes have been wiped out, budgets slashed. It is the kind of mood in which people are not ready to give.
Also read :‘We need to go back to the
basics of banking’
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Civil Society News
New Delhi
AS political parties began releasing their manifestoes
for the coming general elections, the
People's Action for Employment Guarantee
and National Campaign for People's Right to
Information organised a Jan Manch in Delhi on 22
March to ensure that politicians included the
right to work and the right to information in their
election agendas.
Activists campagning for implementing the right to information (RTI) law are demanding a national council for RTI to monitor its implementation, selection of information commissioners in a transparent manner and access to information from the private sector.
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) activists would like the scheme to be expanded to urban areas. Instead of 100 days per household, the employment scheme should give 100 days of work to every adult who asks for work.
Politicians of diverse persuasions turned up for the public meeting. It seemed they were taking no chances, making sure that no vote slipped between their fingers. Sharing the dais with Aruna Roy, Jean Dreze and other activists were politicians from the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Communist Party of India and the Janata Dal (Secular).
The Congress was represented by Ashwini Kumar and Sudarsana Nachiappan. They stood staunchly behind NREGA saying the party would surely take the scheme forward. Danish Ali of Janata Dal (S) also agreed that the number of days for work under NREGA must be increased. He backed demands that information commissioners of states be appointed in a transparent manner. D Raja, CPI secretary, backed all the demands raised by the Jan Manch activists. He said his party wants education, health care, housing and employment to be made fundamental rights.
Read more...
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Civil Society News
New Delhi
THE National Rural Employment Guarantee
Act (NREGA) took birth under a cloud of
controversy. It was supported by activists
and hated by establishment economists. Four
years down the line
NREGA has grown in
strength. From 200 districts
it covers the entire
country. There is a
demand for the 100
days job scheme apparent
from the number of
people who have registered.
But there are issues to be sorted out. Jean Dreze, Visiting Professor, Department of Economics, Allahabad University, and seen as one of the key architects of NREGA, spoke to Civil Society on the road ahead for the job scheme.
A very large number of
people have registered
for NREGA. Are you
happy with the
response?
My happiness is not the
issue. But the fact that
more than 50 million
families in rural India
have a job card is certainly
good news for
anyone concerned with
the well being and
rights of rural workers.
Each job card guarantees up to 100 days of
employment under NREGA at the statutory
minimum wage. This is an important step
towards the realisation of the right to work.
However, the main challenge is to ensure that
rural workers are able to secure their entitlements
under the Act, including not only work
on demand but also minimum wages, payment
within 15 days, essential worksite facilities,
and so on. In that respect, there is still a
very long way to go.
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Umesh Anand
THE economic slowdown has voluntary organisations wondering where
their financial support will come from. Donors in India and abroad have
less to give. The impact will take a while to be felt because funds that
have been committed are in the pipeline. But there is talk of foreign funding
going down by 25 per cent. In the country, the people with high incomes in
IT and other such sectors are contending with salary cuts and pink slips.
Companies that are earning less aren't in the mood to be generous.
Organisations like CRY or Child Rights and You, which have ongoing fundraising schemes in which they collect small sums locally, say that they have not been affected. They don't expect their projects to suffer. Is this then the way out for NGOs? Should they function as small businesses?
It is perhaps easier said than done. First of all not all NGOs have the talent and expertise to run as businesses. Then again, many an NGO may be raising issues and creating awareness. It is an important role to play, but because such NGOs don't have clinics and schools to show as the result of their work, they don't have business models they can roll out. They need donors, but are the first to be counted out when the economy is down.
The government has also chosen to tax NGOs that go out and earn for their causes. So a socially responsible business which raises its own money for a good cause gets treated just like any other business. How fair is this?
There are other problems with over emphasis on being businessminded.For instance, the venture capital money flowing into microfinance finally doesn't care too much about poverty. Similarly, bottom of the pyramid businesses only make the rich richer.
Read more...
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Four Bangalore firms turn to TVS
Civil Society News
New Delhi
A year ago, Greeta Varughese was listening to a presentation on how the TVS Motor Co had helped improve life in the villages around its factories.
The women in the villages had been helped to set up businesses. Toilets had been constructed and school buildings renovated. Drinking water had been provided and problems of health and hygiene had been addressed.
Varughese, as senior director of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), wondered why more companies couldn't play a role in rural development just as TVS had. It was a question to which she very quickly found the answer: they just didn't know where to begin.
The companies either worried about spending too little or too much. They weren't sure about how to connect in a rural setting. Those that cared didn't have people on board who could translate their empathy into action. Managements feared being trapped between competing political interests.
It was then that Varughese conceived of the Namma Halli or My Village project. CII members were invited to adopt a village. They would put up the money, but the work would be done by the Srinivasan Services Trust (SST), which, led by Ashoke Joshi, looks after TVS' social initiatives.
It was in fact Joshi's presentation that sparked Varughese's interest in the first place and she had been in touch with him ever since on how SST's rich experience in four Indian states and some 300 villages could be used to persuade other companies to spread their wealth a bit and work for the development of rural Karnataka.
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Ashok Desai
INFORMATION and Communication Technology (ICT) has become an inseparable part of our daily lives. However, the immense potential of ICT to catalyze development is still largely unrealized in India.
This is not to say that ICT has not been utilized in a variety of applications. In fact, there has been immense growth and application of ICT in both public and private spheres.
However, there has been a lack of synergy
between them which has undermined the effectiveness
of harnessing the power of ICT for development
goals.
The government has launched ambitious programmes
towards harnessing ICT in its social
services and civic services through its national egovernance
programme. It has recognized the
potential of ICT in stimulating critical pulse
points of the economy. These include facilitating
distance learning and education; providing
remote services such as healthcare; creating virtual
libraries and repositories of knowledge; establishing
virtual markets, and enabling remote
administration.
The attempt of this paper is to review the experience of the existing initiatives, analyze the constraints and weaknesses, assess factors that could impact effectiveness and propose an ecosystem within which the impact of ICT can be maximized in developmental efforts.
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Saibal Chatterjee
New Delhi
IN an industry where risk-taking is usually a
strict no-no and commercial considerations
override all other concerns, life can never be
easy for somebody like actor-turned-filmmaker
Nandita Das. Essentially a social rights activist
who believes in tapping the power of her craft to
articulate issues that matter to her, she is constantly
at odds with the industry's insular, profitdriven
ethos.
It's been no different with her directorial debut, Firaaq, a film that probes the emotional impact of the 2002 Gujarat communal carnage, which left thousands dead and many times that number scarred for life. It's a narrative that she opted to put on the screen precisely because certain forces didn't want the world to hear its shrill echo.
To avoid disruptions during filming, Nandita shot the film primarily in Hyderabad. "We had to hunt for locations that were similar to those in Ahmedabad," she says.
Pretty much like the 30-odd on-screen roles that Nandita has essayed in a career that began nearly a decade and a half ago, Firaaq is a daring departure from the norm. "I could have," she says, "chosen a safer theme for my first film as a director. But then, I live in Delhi. I am not really a part of the Mumbai industry. I do not have to follow its rules."
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Rita Anand
THE emergence of the Independent candidate always causes heartburn among established political parties during an election. Who is this spoiler, this splitter of votes, this pain in the neck, they fume. Even for the lowly position of councillor, new actors emerge from the woodwork. The media dismisses them as oddballs.
Celebrity candidates are normally snapped up by political parties. But this time some celebrities are standing as Independents. There is Mallika Sarabhai fighting with gusto for the Gandhinagar seat in Gujarat. The lovely Meera Sanyal throws her hat in the ring in South Mumbai. And Captain GR Gopinath, who upgraded the middle class from trains to planes, is contesting fromBangalore South. These candidates have star appeal. So the media is most interested and we listen to the celebrity Independents being interviewed on a variety of TV channels. They sound perfect - sincere, honest, passionate.
You could say what's the use they won't win and even if they do they will not be effective because they are not backed by political muscle. Use your vote elsewhere. Maybe you are right.
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