LETTERS

Issn 0012-9976

Ever since the first issue in 1966, EPW has been India’s premier journal for comment on current affairs and research in the social sciences. It succeeded Economic Weekly (1949-1965), which was launched and shepherded by Sachin Chaudhuri, who was also the founder-editor of EPW. As editor for thirty-five years (1969-2004) Krishna Raj gave EPW the reputation it now enjoys.

editor

EPW Research Foundation

EPW Research Foundation, established in 1993, conducts research on financial and macro-economic issues in India.

Director

k kanagasabapathy

C 212, Akurli Industrial Estate Kandivali (East), Mumbai 400 101 Phones: (022) 2887 3038/41 Fax: (022) 2887 3038

epwrf@vsnl.com

Printed by K Vijayakumar at Modern Arts and Industries, 151, A-Z Industrial Estate, Ganpatrao Kadam Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai-400 013 and published by him on behalf of Sameeksha Trust from 320-321, A-Z Industrial Estate, Ganpatrao Kadam Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai-400 013. Editor: C Rammanohar Reddy.

Closure of Primary Schools

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Fertility in Karnataka was very high in the 1960s and 1970s with the estimated birth rate around 42 per thousand of the population. The decadal growth rate of population in Karnataka during 1961-71 was a little more than 24.2%. In order to contain this rapid population growth, the Government of Karnataka launched massive family planning programmes, as elsewhere in the country. This programme could not make much headway in the initial stages due to various sociocultural reasons, but thanks to thousands of selfless health and family planning workers, doctors, programme managers and administrators, fertility started declining and today the state has achieved its demographic goal of a birth rate of 18 per thousand population. In some districts, like Udupi, fertility has gone below replacement levels, while others are on the threshold of reaching this stage. Some districts, like Chikmagalore, recorded negative population growth between 2001 and 2011. Thus, Karnataka can be said to be in an advanced stage of demographic transition.

It appears that the sharply falling birth rate in Karnataka, in particular the rural areas, is compelling the government to merge or relocate primary schools in rural areas. This problem is confined not just to Karnataka. All the states which have been experiencing a rapid fertility decline will have to face this problem.

Instead of politicising such an important issue, all those interested in providing good quality education to children – Kannada activists, writers, educationists, administrators and representatives from the government – must come together and find an amicable solution.

Small Farmers Benefit

M

This diversification will restore the ecological balance. States like Punjab have experienced a falling water table and a huge loss of soil nutrients due to its farmers remaining prisoners of the vicious cycle of wheat and rice.

The Indian farmer may not understand the terms and conditions of FDI and the laws but a shift towards other crops will certainly give a new direction to Indian agriculture and reduce the chances of a farmer committing suicide. Mostly, small farmers will be the beneficiaries of the opening of markets.

Another aspect would be the improvement in the quality of agricultural produce, given the technical inputs from these international firms. It will further encourage contract farming which would also give a new dimension to traditional agricultural practices.

The terms and conditions of allowing FDI should be debated and formulated accordingly but the positive effects it can

vol xlviI no 8

EPW

LETTERS

have on agriculture cannot be ignored. This door to the open world for the small farmers should not be completely shut.

Premature Obituary

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True, the global economy, which never fully recovered from the 2008-09 crisis, is further slowing down and at home too, there are concerns and constraints galore: fiscal, monetary and, more important, governance related. However, whether the time is really ripe for writing an obituary of the growth model itself calls for dispassionate debate and seems to be premature at this stage, to say the least.

The elite private investment and consumption-led growth model has no doubt given rise to several critical issues which have a strong bearing on India’s healthy, sustained economic development. But, let us not make haste and ignore what has been already delivered by this very same model. Contrary to popular perception, the last decade has not only generated good growth numbers (8%, 9% and a good 7% in the face of the global slowdown), but has also led to faster poverty reduction. The evidence on employment generation is mixed at best. Enormous new job opportunities have opened up across sectors and regions of India, but skill deficits remain a critical block. As regards regional, inter-state economic disparities, recent evidence clearly suggests that many of the erstwhile laggard states are generating growth and catching up. Intra-state disparities, even in a state like Maharashtra, remain a genuinely disturbing phenomenon. The colossal neglect of governance is the villain in the piece and not corporates or private investors who have generated at least some pockets of rural prosperity, despite the political and administrative constraints.

Admittedly, we are still far away from genuinely inclusive and participatory growth. The recent evidence on primary education status as well as on health and nutrition is clearly a crying shame. But, one shudders to even think where we would have been as a country in the absence of high economic growth that has provided us the tax revenues which could finance pro-poor schemes.

In the EPW editorial, an undue emphasis has been given to the adverse effect of liberalising short-term capital flows, foreign direct investments, etc. Important as they are in the overall scheme, no one should seriously argue that our “growth mode” almost entirely hinges on the inflow/outflow of foreign capital as is being projected in the editorial.

Many mid-stream corrections are necessary, but within the framework of greater market-reliance, private sector investment and keeping a more open economy, domestically and globally.

Indeed, there is a lurking danger that, taking wrong signals from the present malaise, the State may register an untimely comeback with a heavy hand, nullify the gains of the last two decades and the Indian economy may shrink back to the pre-1990 growth model. Finally, capitalism – even the emerging Indian version of it – is entirely compatible with democracy, far more than socialism (or its Indian version) ever was.