Author: cprindia

FULL ACCESS TO THE JOURNAL ARTICLE, CO-AUTHORED BY NAVROZ K DUBASH
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE CLIMATE RESEARCH

Carbon emissions—and hence fossil fuel combustion—must decline rapidly if warming is to be held below 1.5 or 2 °C. Yet fossil fuels are so deeply entrenched in the broader economy that a rapid transition poses the challenge of significant transitional disruption. Fossil fuels must be phased out even as access to energy services for basic needs and for economic development expands, particularly in developing countries. Nations, communities, and workers that are economically dependent on fossil fuel extraction will need to find a new foundation for livelihoods and revenue. These challenges are surmountable. In principle, societies could undertake a decarbonization transition in which they anticipate the transitional disruption, and cooperate and contribute fairly to minimize and alleviate it. Indeed, if societies do not work to avoid that disruption, a decarbonization transition may not be possible at all. Too many people may conclude they will suffer undue hardship, and thus undermine the political consensus required to undertake an ambitious transition. The principles and framework laid out here are offered as a contribution to understanding the nature of the potential impacts of a transition, principles for equitably sharing the costs of avoiding them, and guidance for prioritizing which fossil resources can still be extracted.

The full article can be accessed here.

The Government of India passed three farm reform bills- The Farmers’ Produce Trade And Commerce (Promotion And Facilitation) Bill, The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, in the Monsoon Session of the Parliament. The passage of these bills has led to widespread protests by farmers across the country. It has also raised critical concerns over the direction in which agricultural reforms should go, the nature of these three bills and the process through which they were passed in Parliament.

In this episode of CPR’s podcast, ThoughtSpace, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Dr Mekhala Krishnamurthy, Senior Fellow and Director, State Capacity Initiative at CPR and Associate Professor, Ashoka University, and Ajay Vir Jakhar, Chairperson, Bharat Krishak Samaj. Krishnamurthy and Jakhar are India’s most prolific commentators on agriculture and have deeply studied agricultural reforms. They shed light on what the current reforms mean for the Indian farmer and the future of agriculture in the country.

In an earlier episode of ThoughtSpace, Dr Mekhala Krishnamurthy discussed how the government could strengthen the mandi system to truly double farmers’ incomes. Listen here.

Scholars at CPR have closely followed these developments and studied their implications for agriculture. Read their analysis below:

• In Hindustan Times, Yamini Aiyar and Mekhala Krishnamurthy highlight how the farmers’ agitation at Delhi’s doorstep exposes deep fault lines and new possibilities in the politics of representation, reform and Centre-state relations. They shed light on the need for a renewed politics of trust to truly reform agriculture.
• In an article published in Hindustan Times in October, they had examined the federal implications arising out of the way in which the farm laws were passed in Parliament. They highlighted the need for political statesmanship and consensus-building for genuine cooperative federalism to reform agriculture.
• In a discussion on India Ahead News, Mekhala Krishnamurthy analyses whether farmers will get better prices for their produce with the entry of big companies. She highlights the need to strengthen the farmer’s terms of engagement in the agricultural markets through investment.
• a discussion on India Ahead News, Yamini Aiyar discusses why the farmers’ protest is an important political moment. She highlights that no country has made a structural transformation from agriculture to industrialisation without first enhancing agricultural productivity. She explains that our failure to do so has led to a deep agrarian crisis, amplified consistently due to policy decisions over the last few years and the economic crisis India now confronts.
• How have we arrived at a point where the effect of laws promulgated to enable freer trade in agricultural produce has led to the State erecting extraordinary physical barriers to prevent farmers, the producers, from entering the capital city to protest and place their demands? In this video, Mekhala Krishnamurthy discusses  key aspects of the farm laws to contextualise the ongoing farmers’ agitation.
• In ThePrint, Mekhala Krishnamurthy analyses the issue of licensing and registration of farm produce buyers. She writes, under the new law, farmers won’t know if the PAN-wielding buyer has been registered, and also won’t have access to timely and updated price information in trading areas. Furthermore she highlights that agricultural marketing laws as a whole—need to be re-examined keeping in mind the basic principles, processes, investments, and institutions essential to create the robust and supportive regulatory architecture that agricultural markets in India actually need.
• In ThePrint, Asim Ali analyses the opposition to the farm laws despite the fact that the agricultural reforms push had all the features and sensibilities of Narendra Modi’s distinctive middle-class politics of aspiration. He highlights that Modi’s middle-class constituency is essentially a coalition of two strikingly distinct classes — the traditional middle classes and the neo-middle classes. These two classes are bound together more by a sensibility and a loose ideological orientation rather than any concrete interests, and these hard limits have become apparent in the farmers’ protest.
• In a discussion organised by ThePrint, Mekhala Krishnamurthy highlighs how the current farm laws ignore the first principles of reform, which include good price discovery & mechanism to ensure good price settlement for farmers. She underscores the need to to see farmers as active economic agents who deserve investment & support and the need to preserve the diversity and complexity of India’s agricultural systems.
• In Hindustan Times, Shoumitro Chatterjee highlights the need for a credible risk mitigation strategy. He sheds light on the linkages between the level and volatility of farmer incomes and underscores that freer and integrated markets will make their incomes even more volatile.

Watch the full talk (above), where Devesh Vijay tracks changes in demography, occupations, incomes, consumption patterns in villages and slums on Delhi’s margins using surveys, focus group discussions, interviews and life sketches. The study was constructed in two working class communities within the National Capital Region, in 1988-89, and again in 2013-14.

To listen to the lively discussion that followed, tune in to the Q&A Session.

FUTURE OF THE VIBRANT, ROADSIDE MARKETPLACES IN INDIA

Watch the full video (above) where Durba Chattaraj describes the world of ‘little box retail’, small roadside shops, which line a major national highway in West Bengal. She argues that while these retailers form the center of local economic and social life, a majority of them are unauthorized structures. She uncovers the unusual way in which the municipality taxes these unauthorized structures, through the creation of informal ‘trade licenses’ in an attempt to mediate the dissonance between the law and actual practice in everyday life in India.

As India proceeds on the path of highway modernization and road widening, it becomes important to question the future of these vibrant, and unauthorized, roadside marketplaces.

AMBRISH DONGRE AND HIS COLLABORATORS SHARE FINDINGS IN THE LATEST CO-AUTHORED STATE OF THE NATION REPORT
EDUCATION RIGHTS

Context

This report describes the status of implementation of the section 12(1)(c)of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act.

This section sets aside at least 25 per cent of the seats at entry level (pre-primary or grade 1) for children from economically weaker and disadvantaged sections of society at no cost to these children in: i) private unaided schools (non-minority) and, ii) special category schools.

The unaided schools that admit children through section 12(1)(c) are reimbursed a stipulated amount based on the comparison between actual amount charged by the school and recurring per student expenditure incurred by the government. This recurring expenditure is notified by the state governments from time to time, and is referred to as ‘notified costs’.

By mandating the inclusion of underprivileged children in private unaided schools, it acknowledges and challenges the existing hierarchies in access to education. Its effective implementation requires the government to create a system providing administrative, financial, and legal support.

What was the research about?

The report documents:

Procedural design of the admissions process and systems – especially online admission processes – followed in Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan, as well as the initial implementation of online portals in Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh;
Concerns and challenges faced by multiple stakeholders in relation to the online admission process;
Parents’ experiences of 12(1)(c) application process, and further experiences once the child is admitted to school through 12(1)(c);
Issues surrounding reimbursements to private schools that admit children under section 12(1)(c) and overall expenditure incurred for 12(1)(c) by the government;
Legal developments in relation to 12(1)(c).
How was the research conducted?

Information about admission processes was obtained from concerned officials in respective states. Attempts were also made to interact with parents who had applied through 12(1)(c); school administrators; and various non-governmental organisations and individuals who work in this space. Capturing parental experiences during the application process and once the child was admitted to a school through 12(1)(c) was the outcome of an extensive data collection exercise carried out in Ahmedabad. Additionally, budget documents were analysed to estimate per child expenditure on children in government schools while legal documents were scrutinised to understand the legal developments around section 12(1)(c).

Key findings

Non-implementation of 12(1)(c)

Out of 36 States and Union Territories (UT) in India, only 1 Union Territory and 11 States initiated action as evidenced by their seeking funds from the Central Government for implementation of this mandate, as the rules allow them to. These States include Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh. Despite more than five years of the RTE coming into force, more than half of the States/ UTs have not implemented this section.

Of the states that are implementing this mandate, a number of them implement section 12(1)(c) through a centralised online admission process (details given below).

Admission Processes

The report finds that the centralised admission process has improved administrative control and transparency in the admission process. However, the process, with its reliance on internet and absence of support structure, has also created access barriers.

The report describes experiences of applicants in Ahmedabad (Gujarat) where centralised online application process was implemented for the first time in admissions through section 12(1)(c) for the academic year 2017-18. Though the centralised online application potentially allows for a number of improvements over a paper-based system, the implementation of it highlighted many problems.

Lack of internet access, heavy reliance on cyber cafes and consequently higher expenses incurred for the application process, combined with problems faced by applicants in filling application forms were the direct fallout of the online process. In addition, complete absence of or inadequately equipped help-centres; lack of effective grievance redressal mechanisms; confusion around eligibility criteria; lack of synchronisation with admission cycle for seats, which are not reserved i.e. rest of the 75% seats exacerbated the complexity of the application process. Some of these problems were evident in other states as well.

The report offers a range of recommendations to improve this situation.

Lottery mechanisms

The report also compares the logic (of lottery) used for allotment of seats to applicants. Based on interviews with concerned officials from four states, the researchers found systematic differences in the logic used across these states. There were differences on accounts of public disclosure, ordering of applicants’ preferences for schools, and format of result declaration. For example, in some states (like Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Gujarat) applicants received allotment to only one school whereas in Maharashtra, an applicant could receive a confirmed allotment to multiple schools, of which one would be selected by the applicant. On the other hand, applicants in Rajasthan received priority numbers for each school applied.

Evidence from Ahmedabad based on a large scale survey

The report also presents findings from a child tracking study of over 1600 households in Ahmedabad.

The child-tracking study finds that although most eligible households are likely to apply if informed about the provision, information alone is insufficient to successfully navigate the various stages of the application and admission process. There are barriers in the form of transaction costs and information access, which prevent the more disadvantaged households from applying and receiving allotment of a seat. For example, many households need to procure documents such as caste certificates and income certificates for the process, which is both time consuming and costly.

More educated households and those with local language (Gujarati) as their mother tongue, which increases the access, may be at an advantage, as suggested by higher application and allotment rates of households with these characteristics.

Further, in a first attempt of this kind in the context of section 12(1)(c), the data shows that over 96% of those who had admitted their child through the policy in June, 2015 continued to attend the same school in December, 2016 (when the data was collected).

Once children are admitted to schools through 12(1)(c), preliminary findings suggest that fewer of them participate in extracurricular activities such as sports and cultural activities compared to those enrolled in private schools without the provision. Such challenges are a cause of concern and merit further exploration.

Issues around reimbursement

Analysis of budget documents reveals that there is discrepancy between notified per student reimbursement costs and actual per student expenditure by government as estimated by the researchers. Sources of this discrepancy are difficult to locate due to lack of clarity on how these notified costs are derived in the first place. Analysis, detailed in the report, also points to the possibility that most of the schools admitting children under 12(1)(c) are low cost/fee private schools. What that means for inclusion and learning needs to be analysed.

Legal Developments

The chapter on legal developments draws attention to issues related to Section 12(1)(c). The researchers find that while the courts have resisted efforts to narrow the eligibility criteria (like using the criteria of having a Below Poverty Line (BPL) card as the only way of identifying Economically Weaker Section (EWS) candidates), they have generally stayed away from ruling on administrative procedures like the mode of admissions. The courts have been particularly proactive with regard to ensuring the benefits of the mandate reach children with needs.

Way forward

The report makes specific and detailed recommendations on various aspects of the implementation of section 12(1)(c) such as clarity in rules regarding eligibility criteria; not relying exclusively on GPS for defining neighbourhoods; more time for application process; building a robust Management Information System to manage expenditure and reimbursement effectively; creative and informative communication campaigns; online and offline modes of application; timely and adequate reimbursements; and child tracking. More broadly though, the report calls upon government officials, judiciary, and private stakeholders for their active participation in ensuring effective implementation of 12(1)(c).

A TALK BY TARIQ THACHIL
URBAN GOVERNANCE

Listen to a talk (above) by Thariq Thachil, Peter Strauss Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University where he presents the findings from his paper ‘Who Becomes a Slum Leader in Urban India?’

The talk describes the results and inferences from a study conducted by Adam Auerbach and Tariq Thachil that investigates the role of political brokers in the slums of two Indian cities. The study, based on an extensive survey experiment with 2,199 residents across 110 slum settlements in Jaipur and Bhopal, broadly found that slum leaders emerge through bottom-up selection by slum residents.

DISCUSSION WITH AUTHORS OF THE UPCOMING 6TH ASSESSMENT REPORT OF THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE
CLIMATE RESEARCH

On 1 October 2019, the Initiative on Climate, Energy and Environment (ICEE) at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) organised a discussion on climate policy and action with authors of the upcoming 6th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This event was held in the backdrop of the second IPCC Lead Author Meeting for Working Group III (Mitigation of Climate Change), in which global experts met in Delhi to assess global progress toward reducing the rate of climate change.

The panelists included Fei Teng (Associate Professor and Deputy Director, Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy, Tsinghua University, China), Harald Winkler (Professor, University of Cape Town, South Africa), Heleen de Coninck (Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Science, Radboud University, The Netherlands), Karen Seto (Frederick C Hixon Professor of Geography and Urbanisation Science, Yale University, USA), and Roberto Schaeffer (Professor, Energy Economics, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).

The conversation was moderated by Navroz K Dubash (Professor, CPR and Coordinator, ICEE) and Ritu Mathur (Senior Fellow, TERI).

About the Speakers

Fei Teng is Associate Professor and Deputy Director at the Institute of Energy, Environment, and Economy, Tsinghua University, and Lead Author (Chapter 17) for The Working Group III contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. His research interests include energy and climate policy analysis using modeling tools, and the international climate regime.

Harald Winkler is Professor, University of Cape Town, and Coordinating Lead Author (Chapter 4) for The Working Group III contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report.

Heleen de Coninck is Associate Professor in innovation studies at the Environmental Science department at Radboud University, and Lead Author (Chapter 16) for The Working Group III contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. Her research interests are international climate policy, energy technology and innovation. Before joining Radboud University, she worked for over 10 years at the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN). She was one of the Coordinating Lead Authors of the IPCC Special Report on limiting warming to 1.5°C, which was published in 2018.

Karen Seto is the Frederick C Hixon Professor of Geography and Urbanisation Science at Yale University, and Coordinating Lead Author (Chapter 8) for The Working Group III contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. She is one of the world’s leading experts on contemporary urbanisation and global change. Her research has generated insights on the links between urbanisation and land use, food systems, biodiversity, and climate change.

Roberto Schaeffer is Professor in Energy Economics at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, and Coordinating Lead Author (Chapter 3) for The Working Group III contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. Dr Schaeffer’s main area of competence is in integrated assessment of climate change and coupled energy-economy climate modelling. In 2007, Dr Schaeffer was a co-recipient, with a number of scientists, of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for research contributions to the IPCC.

Navroz K Dubash – Professor, CPR, and Coordinating Lead Author (Chapter 13) for The Working Group III contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report. He is the editor of the forthcoming book, India in a Warming World: Integrating Climate Change and Development (Oxford University Press).

Ritu Mathur – Senior Fellow, TERI, and Lead Author (Chapter 4) for The Working Group III contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report. She heads the Centre for Integrated Assessment and Modeling at TERI, and her research focuses on examining and addressing the multiple connections between climate change, energy security and sustainable development.