by Peter Knight | Apr 3, 2024 | Events, News
“While India is a rich site of several Basic Income Pilots held by Research and Governmental agencies, there is a recent uptrend in the number of cash-based social policies in several states, especially with evidence that shows a marked increase in several indicators of a better life. The time has come in India when the discussion on Basic Income in India is to be taken to the next level. In this context, the Indian Basic Income Coalition (iBIC) was launched in a landmark initiative to craft a resilient and inclusive social policy framework for India as a pioneering coalition formed by Indus Action, the India Network for Basic Income, Project DEEP, and WorkFREE. The launch took place at the UBI Policy Roundtable in New Delhi at Sri Aurobindo College of Arts and Communication in New Delhi on 13 March 2024.”
Read more by clicking here.
View and download the iBIC brochure by clicking here.
by Peter Knight | Mar 6, 2024 | News
“For this session, we will be in discussion with Vibhor Mathur. Vibhor is a Doctoral Researcher at the University of Bath and is a UK and Research Associate at University of Cardiff, UK.
Vibhor studies the transformative potential of basic income through pilots and advocacy in South Asia and Europe. His doctoral research on the the WorkFREE project in Hyderabad, India, focuses on the role basic income can play in the fight for dignity, freedom and decent work.”
To read more and/or register to participate, click here.
by Malcolm Torry | Jul 31, 2020 | News
The organisers say this about the webinar:
The Web Lecture is being delivered by Professor Guy Standing, Professorial Research Associate, SOAS, University of London; Co-founder and Co-President, Basic Income Earth Network and Former Director of ILO’s Socio-Economic Security Programme. MS. Renana Jhabvala, Chairperson, SEWA Bharat will Moderate the Web Lecture.
A basic income system is one in which all individuals within a community receive a modest regular cash payment without conditions as a non-withdrawable economic right. It is a component of a distributive system, necessarily complemented by other public benefits and services. Drawing on recent books, this lecture will examine the ethical justifications for a quasi-universal basic income, considering the standard objections, and then argue that in an era of severe economic shocks and pandemics, in which the neo-liberal economics revolution has generated a global system of rentier capitalism, it is also a policy imperative. As such, it should be understood as a feasible, affordable base of a new income distribution system. Finally, it will consider how its economic and social effects differ from other possible policy interventions. This will draw in part from pilots done in India and Africa covering thousands of individuals in many communities. It will plead for an end of a dialogue of the deaf that has characterised much of the debate on basic income in India.
For further details, click here; and to register for the webinar, here
by Malcolm Torry | Jun 29, 2020 | News
Numerous articles about Basic Income have appeared in the press in India, contributing to an already lively debate about Basic Income in the country.
In March, Neil Howard and Sarath Davala wrote an article for Al Jazeera:
Alongside securing a regular supply of food, therefore, unless our governments plan to supplant the market economy entirely and move towards a system of resource-allocation that is less anarchic, one of their primary tasks must be to ensure that people have enough money in their pockets to buy it. This is where introducing a basic income becomes an option.
Also in March, Prem Das Rai and Sarath Davala wrote an article for the Financial Express asking for an Emergency Basic Income:
We advocate that an emergency basic income be provided through the direct cash transfer mechanism that Government of India has implemented. This will not only arrest potential social unrest but also ensure that there is continued aggregate demand to sustain our economy.
(Further articles about the needs of migrant workers in India can be found here and here)
More recently, Guy Standing, Renana Jhabvala and Sarath Davala have written an article in the Indian Financial Express recommending a Basic Income.
For society to have the required resilience to survive this crisis and to recover from it, everybody must have the capacity to try to respond responsibly. If some groups are left vulnerable and deprived, all groups will be vulnerable and deprived. A basic income would give meaning to the claim that ‘we are all in this together’.
by Andre Coelho | May 29, 2019 | News
Night view from Coorg valley, India
It seems the promise of a solid financial ground for all poor citizens in India was not enough to win the Congress Party a leading position on the Indian parliament in New Delhi. The country just counted its votes on the past 23rd of May, and the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was reappointed to power by a landslide, winning more seats than all the other parties combined (56% of all votes). The Congress Party, the second most voted party, got less than one fifth of the BJP won constituencies. Although there has been some contention on the voting procedure, BJP election seems indisputable.
The BJP party had also spoken about a cash transfer, unconditional in principle, to poor farmers, but that was clearly on an electoral spell, and only because the Congress Party had already gone public with its plan to roll out a basic income-type of policy if elected. In any case, the amount proposed by the BJP was many times lower than the former, and limited to poor farmers, so that shouldn’t have been the motive for the Congress defeat on these elections.
Congress Party had announced and defended the implementation of a basic income in India on the basis of reducing poverty. However, statistics show that poverty has been dropping sharply in India through the last decade. The Indian government stated that 22% of its population lived under the official poverty line in 2012. In 2015, that number had been reduced to 12,4%, according to World Bank Data. Also, as of 2019, only about 3% of the Indian population now lives in extreme poverty, according to the World Poverty Clock. This means that, as far as escaping poverty is concerned, things have been doing fine in India lately, and that helps to explain this election’s result: the BJP is not perfect, but has been making sure the trend in reducing poverty is maintained. And that collects a lot of votes.
In Sikkim, the small northern Indian state in which the ruling party (Sikkim Democratic Front – SDF) was seriously considering rolling out a basic income for its 600 thousand people, once re-elected, things gone the other way around. The ruling party was defeated – by a small margin – by a contender (Sikkim Krantikari Morcha), and with it goes the would-be policy of guaranteed income for all. Maybe the decision on choosing a leader, at this moment in time, was less related with basic income (Sikkim is one of the wealthiest states in India, enjoying low inequality and relatively high living standards on average), but with other issues. One of these could be the fact that SDF had been in power for 25 years, and so might have worn the seat too much, which easily happens in a democracy.
Some analysts consider this election to be a huge failure for the Congress Party. That is certainly an understandable connection and the result surely worried Congress leaders. However, trying to promote plurality, secularity, and now the “radical” redistributive policy of basic income, cannot be wrong in itself. It shows, rather, the mark of progressive politics. It’s just that the contemporary average Indian voter seems to be more interested in maintaining what he/she has gained in the last few years – which has, nonetheless, amounted to, on average, a great uplift in living conditions – and in securing a national identity (an easier Us vs Them mentality), then aligning with an all-encompassing pacifying agenda that doesn’t interest markets, GDP or (a power-driven) foreign policy.
In any case, and if examples like Finland have any relevance, this is not the end of basic income in India. Just a momentary stop on the roadside.
More information at:
André Coelho, “India: Congress party gets serious about basic income and reaches out to Thomas Piketty for policy design support”, Basic Income News, February 14th 2019
André Coelho, “India: Basic income is being promised to all poor people in India”, Basic Income News, February 1st 2019
André Coelho, “India: The Indian government also promises basic income to farmers”, Basic Income News, February 12th 2019
“India’s BJP tells opposition to ‘accept defeat with grace’”, BBC News, May 22nd 2019
Annalisa Merelli, “Indian elections 2019: What can Democrats learn from Congress failure”, Quartz, May 25th 2019
André Coelho, “India: Sikkim state is on the verge of becoming the first place on Earth implementing a basic income”, Basic Income News, January 11th 2019
