Author: cprindia

BY ACCOUNTABILITY INITIATIVE
FISCAL DEVOLUTION SOCIAL SECTOR SCHEMES BUREAUCRACY

Accountability Initiative (AI) released a series of blogs over the month of August, interpreting their research on fiscal devolution (State of Social Sector Expenditure 2015-2016) in response to the Fourteenth Finance Commission’s (FFC) recommendations to increase the fiscal autonomy of states.

AI studied 19 state budgets to come up with a first comprehensive analysis of the FFC recommendations and its implications for devolution, federalism, and social sector investments in India. Its blog series is highlighted below:

Winners and Losers: How the 14th Finance Commission Recommendations Impacted State Revenues: Avani Kapur analyses the impact of fiscal devolution to states and whether increase in tax devolution was offset by cuts in Centrally Sponsored Schemes. Read the full blog here.

What Has Changed for Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSSs) in 2015-16: Yamini Aiyar discusses how the top down, one-size fit all model of Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) gives little flexibility to states in implementing social policy related programmes, even as the CSS play an important role in ring-fencing money for social policy programmes. Read the full blog here.

The 14th Finance Commission (FFC) and Social Sector Spending: Vikram Srinivas and Avani Kapur analyse state budgets to discuss how states are using greater fiscal autonomy proposed under the FFC recommendations, and find that all states intend to spend more money on the social sector in 2015-16. Read the full blog here.

The 14th Finance Commission and the Way Forward in States: Vikram Srinivas and Priyanka Roy Choudhury write that for effective usage of money through decentralisation, states must ensure a detailed budgetary process and quality data to make informed decisions. This calls for both measures of capacity building and strengthening accountability. Read the full blog here.

The Future of Centrally Sponsored Schemes in the New Era of Devolution: Yamini Aiyar offers specific ways in which the CSS can be best structured to serve the needs of the states as the country adapts to a new era of fiscal devolution post the recommendations of the FFC. Read the full blog here.
AI also ran a tweetathon focusing on findings from six states (Maharashtra, Chhatisgarh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu) out of a total of 19 state budgets studied, which capture the key impacts of fiscal devolution on social sector investments and public service delivery. The full storification of the #PAISA2016 tweetathon can be accessed here.

As Bihar votes the Grand Alliance into power, the Accountability Initiative (AI) at CPR analyses the transformation of elementary education reforms in Bihar over the first two terms of Nitish Kumar, unpacking the successes and challenges. .

Through its working paper titled Education Reforms: Bureaucracy and the Puzzles of Implementation–A case study from Bihar, AI traces the changes introduced in the early years of the Nitish government, and focuses the analysis on the transition made from strengthening education infrastructure to improving learning outcomes through an innovative policy called ‘Mission Gunvatta’ (MG).

‘Mission Gunvatta’ was introduced in 2013 in an effort to improve learning outcomes through interventions aimed at strengthening governance and pedagogy in Bihar’s elementary school classrooms. An important innovation incorporated into the programme was a policy decision to regroup children in classes 3-5 according to learning levels and teach them using materials and activities appropriate to each level, as opposed to the traditional age-grade systems. This was based on a pilot undertaken in partnership with the NGO Pratham in Jehanabad and East Champaran districts in Bihar

The paper by Yamini Aiyar, Ambrish Dongre and Vincy Davis highlights the strengths and weaknesses of implementation processes on the ground, and points to a new set of administrative challenges that the new government will face as it moves on to address the critical problem of addressing learning outcomes.

Read the full paper here: Education Reforms: Bureaucracy and the Puzzles of Implementation–A case study from Bihar.

For a shorter piece, visit the International Growth Centre’s (IGC) website, which funded the research.

ANALYSIS OF THE RESULTS

By rejecting Raghubar Das, Jharkhand sends a message to the BJP by Rahul Verma
Rahul Verma writes in explaining the negative vote swing against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the last six months. Verma highlights that the party shouldn’t impose leaders with no mass base; must address the economy; and should be prepared for a tough poll cycle ahead. Addressing the loss of Raghubhar Das, he writes that ‘when an incumbent chief minister loses along with many of his cabinet colleagues there’s a straightforward interpretation of the mandate. Voters have outrightly rejected the existing government.’ Verma further elucidates the need for the opposition to create and campaign on an alternative ideological vision to challenge the BJP’s hegemonic position.

Urban-rural divide, disgruntled regional allies sparked poll reversal in Jharkhand by Neelanjan Sircar
Neelanjan Sircar writes in highlighting that the BJP cannot disregard its coalition partners to win at the state level, despite its national dominance. He analyses reasons behind the party’s poor performance in Scheduled Tribe and urban areas. Further he writes, ‘it is time for serious introspection for the party, as it heads into important contests in Delhi and Bihar.’

BJP can continue with its ideological projects, but they won’t work until Modi govt fixes economy by Rahul Verma
Rahul Verma writes in Talkpoint by ThePrint about whether the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah combine is no longer a decisive factor in state elections. Verma writes that while the Modi-Shah duo is still by far the best election team any party can hope for, of late, the BJP has been witnessing electoral reversals at the state level. He highlights that the party is now contesting as an incumbent party and voters are judging it by its performance. In addition, the party is not following the coalition dharma, forcing smaller parties to come together for survival. Lastly, Verma points to the unprecedented economic slowdown, highlighting that until the Modi government does not fix the economy, its ideological projects will not work.

Proving most exit polls wrong, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) crossed the mid-way mark in the 243-member Bihar Assembly, winning 125 seats. The Bihar election of 2020 has been especially significant due to several reasons. This is the first state election in the country since the COVID-19 pandemic. What do the results mean for the future of the state and its leaders, particularly Nitish Kumar? How will the verdict affect the course of coalition politics? As young leaders like Tejashwi Yadav and Chirag Paswan emerge, how will the political dynamics in the state change? And what does this verdict tell us about the popularity of BJP and particularly Prime Minister Modi?

Watch (above) the video of the discussion on ‘Analysing the Bihar Election Result’ organised by CPR and the Trivedi Centre for Political Data, Ashoka University (TCPD). The discussion featured Vandita Mishra (Opinion Editor, The Indian Express); Taberez Neyazi (Assistant Professor, National University of Singapore); Gilles Verniers (Co-Director, TCPD & Assistant Professor, Ashoka University and Senior Visiting Fellow, CPR); Neelanjan Sircar (Assistant Professor, Ashoka University and Senior Visiting Fellow, CPR); and Rahul Verma (Fellow, CPR).

Scholars at CPR have closely followed the electoral developments in the Bihar. Read the analysis below:

In Hindustan Times, Rahul Verma analyses how the NDA managed to turn the rising tide against Nitish Kumar, Tejashwi Yadav’s failure to build on the groundswell of support evident in his rallies, and why the exit polls went wrong. Verma writes that the Bihar verdict confirms that elections are won and lost during the campaign and that our focus must remain on understanding the opportunities and constraints each campaign reflects.
In Hindustan Times, Neelanjan Sircar highlights how the tables have turned in the NDA with BJP no longer relying on Nitish Kumar and his JDU to stay in power in Bihar. Sircar writes, in this new era, politics in Bihar will revolve around the competition between a nationally dominant BJP with Modi at the helm and a resurrected RJD led by an ascendant Tejashwi Yadav.
In Economic Times, Gilles Verniers observes that this election confirms a long tradition in Bihar of political fragmentation. He notes that the result shows a vast gap in performance between members of both coalitions. Further, Verniers highlights that local volatility is an important factor contributing to the aggregate outcome.
In Hindustan Times, Gilles Verniers and Samridhi Hooda analyse why women’s representation went down in the Bihar election despite an increase in the number of women candidates from major parties. They highlight that it is only when women find substantial representation across parties that we can hope to see a change.
In Hindustan Times, Neelanjan Sircar analyses the affect of centralisation of welfare by the BJP and Modi. Sircar highlights that the sheer popularity of Modi, and the “vishwas” that voters have placed in him, has changed the way the state-level leaders must do politics.
In a discussion on Mirror Now, Yamini Aiyar and Neelanjan Sircar discuss BJP and JDU’s electoral performance. Aiyar highlights that the BJP’s ability to centralise welfare schemes and mobilise the electorate around it has lead to its success. This she says, left Nitish Kumar facing the consequences of anti-incumbency. Sircar highlights that Nitish Kumar won’t have bargaining power and may have to bend on the will of his alliance partner, given that the BJP has a strike rate of 67%, compared to JDU, which had a strike rate of 37%.
In a discussion on India Today, Rahul Verma highlights key takeaways from the Bihar verdict. He highlights that elections are decided during the campaign phase and the party that remains vigilant to what is happening on the ground wins.
In Hindustan Times, Gilles Verniers and Basim U Nissa analyse the role of caste in Bihar politics. They highlight that the inclusive strategy that most parties claim to follow in Bihar does not ultimately translate into substantial political empowerment of non-dominant groups, which remain fragmented and divided.
In Scroll, Gilles Verniers, Mohit Kumar and Neelesh Agrawal decode the Bihar verdict in 32 charts. They analyse that except for perhaps the Congress, all the other parties can find some reason to be satisfied with the result. Further, they highlight that the NDA won the election by the skin of its teeth and the diminishing popularity of Nitish Kumar almost cost them the election.
In ThePrint, Asim Ali and Ankita Barthwal highlight how the BJP’s success in an assembly election is determined, above all, by its ability — or inability — to make ideological issues salient. They further analyse that the party manages to win handsomely as a challenger, often aligning with non-dominant castes to mount an attack on existing power equations in the state. As an incumbent, however, the BJP has had only a modest showing.
In Scroll, Gilles Verniers, Basim U Nissa, Neelesh Agrawal and Mohit Kumar analyse the profile of the new Bihar assembly. They find that most MLAs are male, fairly well-educated, rich, in contradiction with the law and tend to belong to groups that exert local dominance.

1. Is the draft EIA 2020 significantly different from EIA notification 2006? What do you make of this new draft?

At first glance it seems that the draft EIA 2020 is not very different from the 2006 notification read with all its amendments, executive clarifications and the court directions that were already in effect between 2006 and now. This draft pulls it all together into one document. So for those who have been tracking EIA changes, it is not surprising. There are some incremental changes like exemptions for a few more sectors, procedures made lenient for a few more, some more penal provisions for violations and such .

From these, it’s tempting to conclude that we were at a point in 2006 and now we are a few steps below or beyond it. But this is not really the case. What makes this draft so unique is that this is the government’s thinking when our economy is crashing like never before. Not only is ours going downhill but the economic world order is practically changing with the covid lockdowns across the globe. So while the language in the draft is old, everything around in the world has changed.

This draft creates a complacency that may be dangerous. The draft makes one feel like this is familiar and that things just got a bit worse. But that is the farthest thing from truth because all the assumptions that the EIA system is based are under question now. Due to the recession, we may not have many major projects coming up, then why have an approval granting machine? If projects do come up they may not have funds or may not want to invest funds in environmental measures and they may want all kinds of resources handed to them cheaply so they can reap profits even in a recession. If this is a possibility we are looking at, should we not be thinking carefully before we put this EIA system in place? Instead the proposed clauses have an audaciousness or a bravado about them as if nothing has changed.

2. The draft EIA 2020 has been notified at a time when there is a massive economic slowdown due to COVID-19. If notified, will EIA 2020 boost economic growth by simplifying processes for industries and infrastructure?

Environment Approvals cannot boost the economy. This myth has been propagated by successive governments by calling approval procedures a hurdle, hindrance or a bottleneck. The Ministry has made the frequency of approvals and ease of securing them as its target objective based on this misplaced logic. And it keeps reproducing this false narrative of environment vs development.

Speedy approvals may at best help to secure investments from the market and finances from banks in the short term. At worst, if approvals are given to the wrong projects, they can bring entire sectors if not the whole economy down. We have examples of this in the coal-gate of 2014 and the hydel-gate of the Northeast dams. The real estate sector is also a good case in point. Approved projects can also get stuck really badly because people are affected by them and take measures to protect their communities and environmental resources. These are usually the people ignored by the speedy approval procedures.

Achieving economic growth actually needs very careful economic planning at various levels. And growth does not have to come at the cost of the country’s people. So far we have seen no sign of such careful thought for the economy from this government.

3. What does the draft EIA 2020 mean for India’s environment? How does it affect existing environmental standards?

The draft now brings 43 sectors within its regulatory purview but it thins down the regulatory process for them. The draft lays out a six step process and many definitions, giving the impression that there is an elaborate process of scrutiny in place, before a project is approved. However, all this needs to be read with the range of exemptions and provisos. For instance many projects would only require an Environmental Permission (EP) without detailed assessments or public hearings. The draft is also extremely lenient towards expansion and “modernisation” projects that basically use more advanced technologies or raw materials. For instance all projects can enhance their capacity by 10% without any appraisals and just an online application. The draft proposes that the regulators take the project’s word for these aspects.

The draft sets severe limits on the quality of project appraisal, provides for a standard terms of reference for almost all project assessments, increases the validity of the approval period. It gives exemptions to more sectors from public consultation, allows lighter monitoring and compliance protocols for projects. These are all examples of lowering the standards of environment regulation of projects. This is not the direction we must be going in at all given climate change is a harsh reality all around us.

4. How does the draft EIA impact people? Does it have enough provisions for impacted communities to be heard?

Common people have always been and continue to be peripheral to the EIA notification. We say this knowing fully well that the public hearing process has been in the notification since 1997, and it still remains here with its form and purpose watered down a lot. For example: The EIA 2006 notification had reduced the scope of public hearings to only comment on a draft EIA report. So when people came to the hearing to speak about how profoundly the project would take away their resources, these public hearings simply ticked the procedural boxes. As you know as a reporter of these issues, even though many public hearings have seen almost total opposition to a project, that project has been approved by the government.

Yet, this public space is very important for all of us. As people who may be affected by projects, we need information about the project, we need to know from the proponent of the project why they think it’s a good idea to promote it and we need our views about the project to be heard by all parties. This is a reasonable expectation to have in a democracy. In fact, it is the democratic nature of the public hearing that gives the EIA process its legitimacy. Without this, project decisions would be a blatant resource grab. So irrespective of whether people can freely talk at these hearings, the government concludes that it has heard people.

Public hearings are still these in the notification but it has been contained a lot by reducing the notice period from 30 to 20 days and by exempting many projects from public hearings altogether. There is a clause in the draft that says that there should be no postponement of date, time, venue of a public hearing unless some untoward emergency situation occurs and the postponement will be done only on the recommendations of concerned authorities.

5. There is a contentious provision in the draft on regularising EIA violations or projects which have already come up without following due process. What will be the impact of this provision? Can we expect more projects to violate?

This is one of the more significant aspects of the Draft EIA 2020. This is a big public admission from the government that the EIA system suffers from a great number of violations and this is systemic. This acknowledgment has come due to the hard work of many people and organisations who have pointed to project violations, documented them and taken them to task. It seems that the government is ready to admit that development projects have operated outside the framework of law.

So the question now is whether this problem of rampant violations should be handled through statutory law or through government regulation? In this proposal the government is trying to deal with violations like they are remediation projects. But what about the legal liability of these projects that have operated with impunity?

We are not very confident that the government can carry through this attention it wants to give to violations because it has historically played a facilitative role to development projects in its job as an environmental regulator. Now it seems difficult to think that this same institution can restrain projects and extract from them the much needed remediation and compensation costs. Actually these are matters of justice and need to be taken up by a much higher and powerful agency because affected people are waiting for not just the remediation of ecosystems destroyed by these projects but also compensations of various kinds for all their suffering in terms of health, loss of livelihoods and trauma. Given our economic situation now, industry will try to externalise these liabilities further. In this situation, victims of environmental degradation should not be treated as anti-developmentalists for seeking justice.

Listen to the full audio of the talk (above) by Samuel Asher from the University of Oxford where he shares findings from a comprehensive study on the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY).

Asher discusses the links between the lack of rural infrastructure, employment, and economic outcomes. He highlights that poor rural transportation infrastructure is a major constraint on the sectoral allocation of labour in low income countries, elaborating on the impact of the PMGSY in enabling local workers to access external labour markets.

More information about the talk can be found on the event page, and the full paper, which was presented can be accessed here.

After 16 months of the filing of an RTI application by Kanchi Kohli of the CPR-Namati Environment Justice Program, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) disclosed a copy of the ‘Report of the (Shailesh Nayak ) Committee to Review the Issues relating to the Coastal Regulation Zone, 2011’ to the CPR-Namati team in June 2016.

In a short conversation below, the members of the CPR-Namati Environment Justice Program analyse the implications of this report on coastal governance:

What are the key recommendations of the CRZ committee report, which was finally made public after 16 months of your filing the RTI?

There are a range of recommendations of the committee, which include special protection for CRZ 1 areas that are considered to be the most sensitive coastal areas with mangroves, coral reefs and nesting grounds of marine species. The report, however, suggests major changes for the regulation of CRZ II (built-up municipal areas), CRZ III (rural areas) and CRZ IV (12 nautical miles into the sea).

The proposals include devolution of powers to state government and union territory authorities, including their town and country planning departments. This is especially for those activities, which are not covered under the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) notification, 2006.

The recommendations also promote housing infrastructure and slum redevelopment activities in CRZ II and tourism in CRZ III areas based on town and country planning norms and other state regulations. There are also suggestions for allowing temporary tourism facilities in areas that have been so far considered as No Development Zones (NDZ).

Several of the recommendations have already been converted to amendments by the MoEFCC. One such case is the reclamation of the sea for the construction of coastal roads and other infrastructure projects. Our analysis comparing all the eight amendments (made since November 2014) with the Shailesh Nayak Committee report can be accessed here.

What is the impact of these amendments on coastal governance as well as your work?

The disclosure of the report along with other documents like the Ministry’s file notings and representations made to the committee is an important step to understand the demands of the state governments as well as the road map for coastal regulation in India.

The notification in question called Coastal Regulation Zone, Notification, 2011 has always been subject to piecemeal changes as and when demands for amendments have come in from various state governments. While it is important to understand and address the difficulties in implementing a law, the response should not lead to destabilising the law itself. We have highlighted some recommendations for improving CRZ related institutions in our report on CZMAs (Coastal Zone Management Authoriy). To build a vision of coastal governance, it would be constructive to involve various points of view, rather than hold conversations only with central ministries and governments of few coastal states.

Several of the recommendations of the committee have a direct bearing on how people live on the coast. Therefore leaving out this entire constituency from this conversation could set a negative precedence. Our program on environment justice has emphasised on the interactions between citizens and the state as being necessary for making, shaping, and implementation of environmental laws. The efforts to ensure the disclosure of the Shailesh Nayak committee report was one more attempt to encourage this principle.

Are there any further recommendations in the report that you plan to analyse?

One aspect which we will analyse is the representations made to the committee by different state governments, especially Maharashtra, Kerala and Karnataka. This will give us insights into the implementation challenges as perceived by the state governments and how they plan to implement CRZ and prioritise livelihood groups living on coasts like fishermen, farmers, traders, artisans or pastoralists. We also hope to understand how the committee has understood these submissions to frame their recommendations.

TAKING STOCK MID-WAY – ELECTION ADDA BY CPR

In March, CPR scholars launched the Election Adda, a space for debate and analysis on key issues that have dominated this election. From forecasting and evaluating pollster perspectives to dissecting trends and debating the big themes, this series offers important insights into the 2019 campaign.

In the video (above), ‘Taking Stock: A Mid Poll Evaluation of the 2019 Elections’, Rahul Verma moderates a discussion between Surjit Bhalla, Sunetra Choudhury, Dhananjai Joshi and Philip K Oldenburg as part of CPR’s Election Adda series to analyse possible scenarios post May 23. The question and answer session that followed can be accessed here.

In the run-up to the panel above, Yamini Aiyar and Rahul Verma discussed in another episode of Election Adda whether the 2019 election was going to usher a new party system in India. Watch here – ‘Elections 2019 and the Future of the Indian Party System’. In an article in the Firstpost, Rahul Verma again analyses the evolving party system in India drawing on his book Ideology and Identity, which he co-authored with Pradeep K Chhibber.

Other episodes of Election Adda include:

‘Dissecting Polls’ featuring Rahul Verma and Roshan Kishore, moderated by Yamini Aiyar, where they discuss who is leading the electoral race and by how much, and why this national election is unpredictable.
‘How to Win an Election’ featuring Abeer Kapoor and Oshin Lakahni, moderated by Rahul Verma, where they discuss Kapoor’s game, ‘The Poll: The Great Election Game’ and what goes into an Indian election campaign.
‘Modi and Millennials – who will India’s Young Voters Choose?’ featuring Vivan Marwaha and Snigdha Poonam, moderated by Rahul Verma, where they discuss the political outlook of young Indian voters.
FRAMING THE DEBATE

National Security vs Economic Issues

Rahul Verma and Pranav Gupta analyse the likely fortunes of the Congress in the national elections in this article in ThePrint. They elaborate on how the party has made attempts to ‘shift the narrative from just national security to jobs, farmers and corruption’ in its campaign. Highlighting that ‘the party has chosen a high-risk, high-reward strategy’, they add that ‘it may fall flat, but it can also bring windfall gains’.
Verma and Gupta also write in another article in ThePrint about how ‘post-Balakot, national security has become the lens through which voters are viewing the performance of the NDA government’. Using data from the pre-poll surveys by Lokniti-CSDS, they argue that given the heightened nationalistic sentiments among Indian voters, it makes sense for Narendra Modi and the BJP to campaign around issues of national security.
Neelanjan Sircar writes in the Hindustan Times, analysing how the Balakot air strike could help the current government in the national elections, especially in the seats BJP is contesting nationally as opposed to regionally, but that ultimately it won’t be a game changer. To establish his argument, Sircar draws on data from the 1999 national election, post-Kargil war, unpacking the differences and the parallels between then and now.
Rahul Verma writes in ThePrint about how the BJP was part of the electoral race even in the pre-Pulwama and Balakot scenario, and that the party’s position is likely to be further strengthened in the aftermath of the air strikes due to increased nationalistic sentiments among the voters. However, ‘if the BJP fails to capitalise on the momentum in its favour and the opposition manages to make the contest centre around economic issues, the 2019 elections would become wide-open with possibilities’, he adds.
On a different note, Ambassador Shyam Saran writes in The Indian Express about the need for political parties to engage in debate on national security issues, rather than making it a subject to score political points during elections. He stresses that ‘citizens have the right to hold their political leaders and governing institutions accountable. It is unacceptable to assert that questioning the armed forces or government is unpatriotic’.
In an interview with Bloomberg Quint, Neelanjan Sircar analyses the campaign of the Congress party, highlighting that it is important for Congress to leverage structural factors that exist in the economy such as unemployment and rural distress in the states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, where it is in direct contest with the BJP to wean away some of the votes.
Politics of Welfare & the Missing Questions in Election Season

Analysing the Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maan-dhan Yojana (PMSYMY), launched in March, 2019 by the BJP, Yamini Aiyar writes in the Hindustan Times that without a ‘clear vision, strategy and institutional architecture for delivering pensions,’ it was yet another scheme ‘designed to fail’. It was launched days before the election for this reason in a likely bid to woo voters, so that they voted on the ‘merits of the promise’ rather than performance.
In another article in the Hindustan Times, Aiyar analyses Rahul Gandhi’s promise of replacing the NITI Aayog with a ‘lean’ Planning Commission, writing that without addressing the political challenge of New Delhi’s inherent tendency to centralise power (vis-à-vis the States), Gandhi’s vision could remain trapped in the failings of the past. She highlights how instead of reshaping the federal compact, which was its stated mandate, NITI Aayog’s style of functioning led to further over centralisation and coercive federalism.
Shyam Saran writes in The Tribune about the need for an ecological civilisation to reverse the climate crises. Saran highlights that ‘this is election season in India but no political party even acknowledges the elemental challenges our country confronts, let alone chart out a path towards ecological sanity’. However, given that India is not yet fully ‘locked into a resource-intensive pattern of growth,’ the opportunity to exercise the right choices is still available to us before it is too late, he adds.
Navroz K Dubash writes in the Hindustan Times about how ‘formulating a serious approach to air quality plan remains a missed political opportunity’ in the midst of election season. Dubash highlights that the clean air plan ‘sets a target without a realistic roadmap, proposes a city-based approach that downplays regional effects, and adopts a something-for-everyone laundry list approach rather than prioritising action’.
Navroz K Dubash along with Shibani Ghosh wrote a book chapter in the book Re-forming India: The Nation Today edited by Niraja Gopal Jayal titled The Ecological Costs of Doing Business: Environment, Energy and Climate Change. In their chapter, Dubash and Ghosh assess the BJP government’s actions in the areas of environment, energy and climate change through i) examining if the government’s focus on reducing the cost of business has come at an environmental price; ii) analysing cases in which an environment and energy agenda was driven by political imperatives; and iii) exploring how the government is addressing big picture questions as well as conducting diplomacy in areas of climate change and energy.
In the same book mentioned above, Yamini Aiyar wrote a chapter titled Maximum Schemes, Minimum Welfare. In this chapter, she analyses the BJP government’s welfare policy and vision and actions taken to realise the promises it made. She writes that despite a powerful mandate to bring about structural transformation, the central government remained caught up in its own contradictions and misdiagnosis of the core challenge, resulting in the loss of a unique opportunity. ThePrint has carried an excerpt of the chapter.
Yamini Aiyar and Louise Tillin co-edited a special issue of the journal Seminar on India’s changing federalism. In an introductory article titled The Problem, they set the context through an overview of changes in the political, fiscal, institutional landscape of India, including the dismantling of the Planning Commission, creation of the NITI Aayog and the GST Council. The entire issue will be available online next month.
In an interview with CNBC TV18, Rahul Verma analyses the BJP manifesto, comparing it with that of the Congress, highlighting that ‘manifestos aren’t written to reach voters directly. These are messages to party cadres on which they’re going to mobilise voters’. Verma adds that while the Congress manifesto was a ‘thought-out’ manifesto on development, agriculture and economic issues, the BJP manifesto seems ‘hurriedly prepared’ and was an ‘ideological’ manifesto. In another interview on CNBC TV18, Verma says that despite the details, the Congress manifesto does not succeed in providing a ‘vision for India’ the way BJP did in 2014.
POLLING TRENDS, VOTER TURNOUT & THE ‘MODI WAVE’

Watch the video of the CPR-Lokniti CSDS Discussion on ‘Opening the Black Box of Election Polling and Forecasting’ as part of the ‘Conversations on Indian Democracy’ Series. The first discussion brought together psephologists and pollsters including Sanjay Kumar, Yashwant Deshmukh and Pradeep Bhandari, who broke down exactly what goes into making an election poll.
Watch the video of the second discussion of the ‘Conversations on Indian Democracy’ Series that brought together journalists and analysts from print, TV and online media to discuss the intricacies involved behind the consumption of poll numbers on their platforms and their dissemination. The panelists included Rajdeep Sardesai, Surjit S Bhalla and Saurabh Dwivedi. Both these discussions were moderated by Rahul Verma.
Rahul Verma writes in Firstpost, analysing data from the second wave of the National Trust Survey conducted by Firstpost-IPSOS, highlighting that if Indians choose to vote for their Prime Minister instead of their Members of Parliament, then the electoral wind is in favour of the BJP. Verma stresses that in such a scenario, ‘the Congress must avoid a direct leadership battle vis-à-vis Modi and make efforts to divert the election discourse to economic concerns of Indian voters’.
Rahul Verma writes in The Times of India about the effects of a change in voter turnout on the re-election chances of an incumbent party in India. Verma points out that those who didn’t turn out to vote may be key to the verdict in 2019, highlighting that if the trend of declining participation rates among the marginalised continues like in 2014, ‘we can bid farewell to the promise of the deepening of democracy’ in the country.
Neelanjan Sircar writes in the Hindustan Times about the impact of voter turnout on election results. Sircar uses data of turnout changes in three national elections, to analyse the ‘theory of turnout’ and gauge the impact of this on the chances of the BJP’s victory in 2019, calling it ‘a battle between party organisation and voter accountability’.
Rahul Verma, Pranav Gupta and Pradeep Chhibber write in ThePrint about factors that affect voter turnout on election day, analysing data of voter turnout for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls for all 1.3 lakh polling booths in Uttar Pradesh. Their analysis finds that simple changes such as making ‘smaller polling booths each of which is not co-located with other polling booths within one polling centre’ can increase the voter turnout by 5-7 percentage points.
Rahul Verma writes in Firstpost about how the results of the 2019 elections will decide the course of Dalit politics. Given the trust deficit created among Dalits for the BJP and the declining popularity of the Bahujan Samaj Party, Verma comments that it is not clear which political party will emerge as the claimant of Dalit votes.
Neelanjan Sircar writes in the Hindustan Times about the likely fortunes of the BJP in the 2019 national elections post its loss in the 3 Hindi belt states including Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, states that it had controlled for 15 years. Sircar’s analysis finds that the party ‘will have to manufacture another Modi wave if it is to return to power in 2019’.
REGIONAL PLAYERS

Uttar Pradesh: The Key to 2019?

Neelanjan Sircar writes in the Hindustan Times about how the Samajwadi Party (SP)-Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) alliance in Uttar Pradesh will affect the BJP’s performance in the national election. Sircar uses data to prove that ‘the BJP’s performance is fundamentally a function of coordination/miscoordination effects in the SP-BSP coalition’.
Neelanjan Sircar writes in India Today about how ‘Uttar Pradesh will be the deciding factor in a second term for PM Modi’. Sircar highlights that ‘the BJP’s performance in UP may be the difference between a commanding electoral performance like 2014, scraping up alliance partners to form the government, or losing the election’.
In an interview with Bloomberg Quint, Neelanjan Sircar analyses who holds the edge in Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha polls. Sircar highlights that ‘the big fight starts after the fourth phase of the elections’.
The Politics in Karnataka

Pranav Kuttaiah writes in The Wire analysing the crucial elements in the electoral arithmetic of North Karnataka. Kuttaiah highlights how ‘with factors like patronage politics and spoiler effects in play, North Karnataka looks to be headed for a tight electoral contest with potentially low voter turnouts’.
Pranav Kuttaiah writes in The Wire analysing the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) (JDS) alliance in South Karnataka. Kuttaiah highlights that while ‘the alliance will make many seats held by the BJP a closer fight, a winning seat could also turn into a close fight by extraneous circumstances’.

On Friday, July 5th 2019, Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman tabled the new government’s first budget. Against the backdrop of a resounding election mandate and an economic slowdown, expectations from this budget were high. Scholars at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) keenly watched the budget. We are delighted to share with you a compilation of analysis and commentary by CPR faculty.

Union Budget: A lost opportunity
Yamini Aiyar
In Hindustan Times, Aiyar calls the budget ‘a lost opportunity’, highlighting that the government has chosen an incrementalist approach rather than announcing radical structural reforms despite its mandate, making clear that Modi 2.0 is going to steer the familiar course. In particular, Aiyar argues that the government has failed to articulate a vision for rural economy, particularly agriculture, overlooking several fundamental issues such as a regressive subsidy regime, badly regulated markets and weak procurement infrastructure.

What the quest for a $5 trillion economy entails
Partha Mukhopadhyay
Partha Mukhopadhyay writes in Hindustan Times that ‘a first budget could have tried harder’ especially given the massive mandate the government received in the elections. Mukhopadhyay questions whether the inertia of the budgetary process sabotaged the claimed novelty of the budget, pointing out that budget shares of several older major schemes have been reduced, even as their absolute allocations have risen.

Budget 2019 Fails to Give Education the Radical Boost it Needs
Kiran Bhatty
Kiran Bhatty writes in TheWire about how the budget fails to give education the radical boost it needs. Bhatty sheds light on the National Education Policy – a policy that recognises correctly the critical juncture at which the sector is poised and the need to invest in it, but highlights that all its good intentions and recommendations are likely to come to naught if the finance ministry does not find a way of opening its purse strings.

Farm to health to education, Modi govt’s Budget has no clear vision for India’s social sector
Avani Kapur
Avani Kapur writes in ThePrint about how the budget missed an opportunity to articulate a comprehensive vision for the social sector and instead ‘reverted to the Narendra Modi government’s old avatar – a focus on infrastructure and a mission-mode model of meeting targets, this time for water’. In particular, against the backdrop of several health disasters faced by the country and the worrying results of NITI Aayog’s Health Index, Kapur writes that the budget needed to focus more on coordinated efforts and convergence across departments and ministries for health, education, WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene), food and social security.

Budget 2019 Is Ambitious on Healthcare. But More Can Be Done
Avani Kapur and Ritwik Shukla
Avani Kapur and Ritwik Shukla write in TheWire that while the budget is ambitious on healthcare and has taken a few steps in the right direction, there is a need to intensify public expenditure on health. While budget allocations have increased compared to the interim budget focusing on quality of public health services, Kapur and Shukla write that more attention needs to be paid to convergence across ministries, such as MohHFW, MWCD, MJS, among others.

Budget 2019: Will Welfare Policy Under Modi 2.0 be About Entitlements or Empowerment?
Yamini Aiyar
In the run-up to the budget, Yamini Aiyar writes in TheWire about how the budget is an opportunity to chart the policy course for the next five years through bold welfare reforms, especially given the government’s historic mandate. Aiyar explains the challenges of financing welfare expansion while balancing the concerns of extensive fiscal slippage. She writes that the budget must address the relationship between income support and existing subsidies as well as the existing basket of welfare schemes.

[WATCH]: Yamini Aiyar analyses key takeaways from the Union Budget 2019
Yamini Aiyar
Yamini Aiyar participated in a panel of experts analysing key takeaways from the budget on NDTV. Aiyar sheds light on the challenge of strengthening the Indian manufacturing sector, the critical reforms that need to be undertaken in the agricultural sector, and the need for rational and leaner financing of social sector welfare schemes.

Budget’s flawed swadeshi objective
Shyam Saran
Ambassador Shyam Saran writes in the Business Standard about how the policy objective of import substitution in the budget is worrying. He highlights that the goal to make India a $5 trillion economy is only possible when the economy is a globalised one and will not be realised through protectionist policies. As tariffs on a range of imports are raised, Saran warns that the country runs the risk of slipping to the pre-1991 sub-optimal strategy of growth, based implicitly on import substitution and protected domestic production, pointing out that this will make Indian industry less competitive.

Budget Briefs by Accountability Initiative: Social Sector Analysis
Find the complete set of budget briefs by Accountability Initiative analysing trends in allocations, expenditures and outcomes of 10 social sector schemes of the Government of India in the areas of education, rural development, water and sanitation, health, and maternal and child nutrition.