"Principles and rules
are intended to provide a thinking man with a frame of reference."
—Carl von Clausewitz
(German, 1780-1831)
Word
for the day
Hireling (n)
A person who works only for
pay, especially in a menial or boring job, with little or no concern for the
value of the work.
Malice
towards none
How do we define Sino-Pak
relationship?
Friendship, it is certainly
not.
Slavery, may be.
Stooge, close.
First random
thought this morning
It is the season when stories
of children from poor and marginalized families excelling in various
competitive examinations, especially IIT-JEE and UPSC Civil Services, are told in
media with great fervor.
At the same time there is no
dearth of horrific stories about repression of downtrodden and neglected.
Unfortunately, the popular
narrative of liberal elite is limited to the latter only, thus giving an
impression of total darkness and oppressive state machinery.
Agenda for transformation
The draft three year agenda released by NITI Aayog,
seeks to transform all three major sectors of economy, namely agriculture,
industry and services.
Insofar as the farm sector is
concerned, as per the Draft, "Farmers make up nearly half of India’s
workforce. Therefore, for India to flourish, its farmers and the farm economy
must prosper."
The Action Agenda outlines "a
strong programme for agricultural transformation. It includes numerous measures
to raise farm productivity, bring remunerative prices to farmers, put farmers’
land to productive uses when they are not able to farm it themselves and
improve the implementation of relief measures."
The Draft offers an ambitious
agenda for empowering the rural population through improved road and digital
connectivity, access to clean energy, financial inclusion and “Housing for
All.”
The Draft recognizes that
"Enhancing agricultural productivity requires of efficiently using inputs,
introducing new technologies and shifting from low to high value
commodities."
It is highlighted that higher farm
productivity would require expanding the scope of irrigation to increase crop intensity,
improvement in access to irrigation, enhancing the seed replacement rate and
encouraging the balanced use of fertilizers.
The Draft agenda emphasizes that
"Precision farming and related new technologies, that allow highly
efficient farming and conserve resources, must be spread through appropriate
policy interventions."
Reforming APMCs, redefining the
system of support prices for crops, land reforms to make the landholdings of
marginal farmers viable, and adequate social security program for farmers to
deal with stress due to natural calamities etc. are some of the key
suggestions.
The Draft agenda stresses that to
achieve the goal of doubling farmers' income by 2022, "Conditions
conducive to shift into high value commodities such as horticulture, dairying,
poultry, piggery, small ruminant husbandry, fisheries and forestry need to be
created."
For the industry and services
sector, the agenda finds that underemployment and hence lower worker
productivity is a more serious problem in India, rather than unemployment,
which has remained mostly consistent between 5-8% through past many decades.
Accordingly, the Draft, emphasizes
on creation of high-productivity, high wage jobs. To meet this end, it is
highlighted, that focus has to be on measures necessary for the increased
emergence of larger, organized-sector firms.
While recognizing steady progress
in the services sector, the Agenda offers specific proposals for jumpstarting
some of the key manufacturing and services sectors, including apparel, electronic
goods, gems and jewellery, financial services , tourism and real estate.
I shall discuss all these
proposals in some details in the coming days.
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