by BIEN | Oct 19, 2017 | News
The Future We Need campaign was launched by the Goa Foundation (GF), mines, minerals & People (mm&P), Common Cause and the Goenchi Mati Movement (GMM). Dr. K.R. Rao Committee has been entrusted by the Ministry of Mines in order to draft the National Mineral Policy, due October 31st, 2017.
A letter has been made by the campaign as a draft statement on values, which can be found here.
BIEN has reported on Goa several times (Madhavan, 2017; Shanahan, 2017; McFarland, 2017; McFarland, 2016). The article invokes the Intergenerational Equity principles, or IE, which is the protection of the inheritance resources for future generations.
“In Goa, over an eight year period (2004-2012), 95% of the value of the minerals was lost. The per-head loss from recent “legal” lease renewals was Rs.10 lakhs,” the Director of the Goa Foundation, Claude Alvares, said, “Data from across the country for iron ore, coal, oil and gas shows a similar trend. Everyone is losing equally, while a few are becoming super-rich. This is looting economics, not trickle-down economics.”
The Future We Need proposes some principles for a National Mineral Policy which regards natural resources as the Commons, in such a way that people in general are entrusted as the natural custodians of these resources In this new agreement, the Commons shall be preserved, and if sold the income must be equally shared by all.
More information at:
Alvares, C, “Goa Foundation, mines, minerals & People, Common Cause and the Goenchi Mati Movement jointly launch The Future We Need Campaign”, Futurism, October 3rd 2017
Madhavan, M, “India: Goa Foundation provides recommendations to Expert Committee to push a Citizen’s Dividend out of mining fund”, BIEN, September 29th 2017
McFarland, K, “GOA, INDIA: Citizen’s Dividend promoters find support in Archbishop’s address”, BIEN, January 10th 2017
McFarland, K, “GOA, INDIA: Mining reform group releases Manifesto, calls for citizen’s dividend”, BIEN, November 26th 2016
Shanahan, G, “GOA, INDIA: Goenchi Mati Movement gains political support”, BIEN, February 8th 2017
Photo: Goa mines, CC BY 2.0 Abhisek Sarda
by Kate McFarland | Oct 14, 2017 | News
Notice of correction to and retraction of the article “World Economic Forum recognizes Madhya Pradesh basic income pilot studies”
On September 9, Basic Income News published an article with the headline “World Economic Forum recognizes Madhya Pradesh basic income pilot studies”, which announced that the World Economic Forum (WEF) had bestowed a “best practice in governance award” to Sarath Davala and the India Network for Basic Income (INBI) for their submission of a case study of basic income in Madhya Pradesh, India.
The submission and award are part of WEF’s New Vision for Development competition, an international competition seeking new global approaches to inclusive growth.
This announcement was made in error. In actuality, the Madhya Pradesh case study was deemed eligible for an award in the “best practice in governance” category. However, the case study is one of multiple applications eligible for the award, and WEF has not yet selected the recipient of the award.
The original article has been retracted.
Additional updates, information and background:
The WEF invited Dr. Sarath Davala, an independent sociologist and coordinator of INBI, to join other applicants to the New Vision for Development competition at a Sustainable Development Impact Summit held in New York, New York, from September 18 to 19.
The case study on the Madhya Pradesh basic income pilot, of which Davala was the lead author, was also selected for inclusion on WEF’s Inclusive Growth and Development Platform, at interactive online platform to be launched publicly in early 2018.
Regarding the significance of the New Vision for Development competition, Davala states,
The point is not whether one case-study gets an award or one person gets it. The main point is that the idea of Unconditional and Universal Basic Income is being recognised and endorsed by the mainstream global institutions as an idea that can potentially answer some of the most troubling questions of our times, such as chronic poverty, future of employment, meaning of work, and so on. This is truly a big victory for the idea itself.
His submission detailed the pilot study of basic income conducted in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh from June 2011 to November 2012, co-sponsored by UNICEF and the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA). During this 18 month experiment, 6,000 individuals in nine villages received monthly unconditional cash transfers equivalent to about one quarter of the median income in the state. The transfers were delivered to all adults in each village in the pilot, with smaller amounts for every child. Similar villages were used as controls. It was found that, relative to the residents of control villages, individuals receiving the cash transfers were seen to be significantly more likely to obtain adequate nutrition, receive regular medical treatment, invest in improved energy and sanitation, start new businesses, and send their children to school, among other improvements. (The study and its results are described at length in Basic Income: A Transformative Policy for India, authored by Davala, SEWA’s Renana Jhabvala SEWA, Soumya Kapoor of the World Bank, and BIEN cofounder Guy Standing.)
Davala and other researchers have recently completed a legacy study investigating the long-term impacts of the Madhya Pradesh pilot, and Arvind Subramanian, Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India consulted the experiment in preparing a chapter on universal basic income for the 2017 Economic Survey of India. In this document, Subramanian cites evidence from Madhya Pradesh to support a rebuttal of claim that unconditional cash transfers would lead to a reduction in the labor supply, stating that, on the contrary, “the study shows that people become more productive when they get a basic income”.
In its Inclusive Growth and Development Report (2017), the WEF states that basic income alone cannot adequately substitute for what it considers the “five crucial institutional underpinnings of a well-functioning labor market” (labor-market policies, equal access to quality education, gender parity, non-standard work benefits and protections, and effective school-to-work transition); however, its authors remark that the policy may “form part of an appropriate policy response” or “serve as a useful complement” to other strategies.
The World Economic Forum does not endorse basic income but encourages the sharing and discussion of a wide range of approaches to inclusive and sustainable growth.
Post reviewed for content by the World Economic Forum and copyedited by Heidi Karow
Photo: Valleys of Madhya Pradesh, India CC BY 2.0 Rajarshi MITRA
by BIEN | Sep 29, 2017 | News
On August 2, 2017, the Supreme Court (SC) of India delivered a judgement imposing a 100% penalty on illegal mining in Odisha, India and asked the Government to review the National Mineral Policy (2008). The court also called for an expert committee to be setup to identify the lapses that have occurred over the years enabling rampant illegal or unlawful mining in Odisha.
The 29 member committee to review the policy was established on August 14, 2017. A draft report by the committee is due on October 31, 2017, and the final submission to the SC on December 31, 2017. The first meeting of the Committee was held on August 28, 2017 where civil society representatives were not present.
The Goa Foundation, an environmental NGO based in Goa, India has submitted a note to the committee highlighting specific recommendations on the Mineral Policy. Titled “The Future We Need”, this 44 page document outlines recommendations for proper valuation, management and extraction of mineral resources to ensure inter-generational equity and environmental sustainability. Among others, it includes a recommendation to establish a Future Generation Fund, where capital received from the sale of minerals can be deposited for distribution to all citizens.
As previously outlined on Basic Income News, The Goa Foundation and the associated Goenchi Mati Movement (GMM) have been advocating for mining reform in India, including establishment of a permanent fund, which would be used to finance a citizen’s dividend – a kind of Basic Income. The movement has received political support in the country and abroad, including from Labour MP and Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK who met with GMM in Christmas of 2016.
The idea of a permanent fund has also received previous mention from the SC. The SC in its landmark judgement in the case of mining in Goa in 2014 included the creation of a Goan Iron Ore Permanent Fund. The idea of creation of Permanent Funds based on extracting economic rent from oil or other natural resources dates back to 1876, and at present over 50 countries/sub-nations have created such a fund.
The Goa Foundation has published its 44 pages policy note and letter, and has presented its recommendations to the Committee at its 3rd meeting on September 26.
For more information:
Supreme Court of India, “WRIT PETITION (CIVIL) NO. 114 OF 2014: Common Cause (Petitioner) versus Union of India and others (Respondents) With WRIT PETITION (CIVIL) NO. 194 OF 2014 Prafulla Samantra and another (Petitioners) versus Union of India and others (Respondents)”, 2016
Goa Foundation, “Letter from the Goa Foundation to the Committee to Review National Mining Policy”, September 2017
Goa Foundation, “The Future We Need”, 11th September 2017
Ministry of Mines, Government of India, “Order for Creation of Committee to Review the National Mining Policy”, 14th August 2017
by Kate McFarland | Jul 19, 2017 | News
India’s Institute for Human Development (IHD), an independent nonprofit research organization, held a roundtable on universal basic income (UBI) on July 10 in New Delhi.
More than 80 politicians, academics, researchers, and other experts participated in the event, which featured keynote addresses from Pranab Bardhan (University of California Berkeley), Vijay Joshi (University of Oxford), Arvind Subramanian (Chief Economic Advisor of the Government of India), and Renana Jhabvala (Self Employed Women’s Association), as well as panel discussions and debates.
UBI has attracted serious attention in India in recent years, due to the success of pilot studies in Madhya Pradesh in the early 2010s, as well as a widespread view that India’s current system of targeted welfare benefits and price subsidies is wasteful and inefficient. Published in January, the 2017 Economic Survey, an annual document prepared by the Ministry of Finance, devoted an entire devoted an entire chapter to UBI, reviewing arguments for the idea, challenges of implementation, and strategies for introducing possible stepping stones to UBI in India. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has recently stated that UBI is not feasible in the country due to “political limitations.”
The IHD roundtable event began with an inaugural address by Bibek Debroy of National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog), a think tank of the Government of India.
This was followed by four technical sessions organized around the work of Bardhan, Joshi, Subramanian, and Jhabvala, respectively.
Pranab Bardhan, CC BY-NC 2.0 UNU-WIDER
Bardhan maintains that a UBI of about a thousand rupees (about 15.5 USD or 13.5 EUR) per month can be afforded by increases taxes on the rich and ending certain government subsidies that primarily benefit the better-off. He cautions, however, that the UBI should not replace all current welfare programs nor divert funding from public goods and services.
(For an overview of Bardhan’s position, see his blog post “How India can do UBI: Universal Basic Income is a practical solution to poverty and inequality,” published May 3 in Times of India.)
Three panelists–Abhijit Banerjee (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Abhijit Sen (formerly of India’s Planning Commission), and Ajit Ghose (Visiting Professor at IHD)–discussed Bardhan’s proposal following his presentation.
Vijay Joshi, CC BY 2.0 Chatham House
In the second technical session, Joshi laid out the model of UBI developed in his recent book, India’s Long Road: The Search for Prosperity, which he calls a universal basic income supplement (UBIS). Joshi proposes a UBIS of 3500 rupees per person year (at 2014-15 prices) to replace most price subsidies and targeted welfare programs (“retain[ing] only those of proven worth”). According to his calculation, the UBIS would cost of 3.5 percent of India’s GDP.
(See also Joshi’s blog post for The Economic Times, “Universal Basic Income is worth fighting for, even against the long odds in its implementation.”)
Panelists who discussed Joshi’s ideas included Amarjeet Sinha (Secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development of the Government of India), Dilip Mookherjee (University of Boston), and Swaminathan Aiyer (author and columnist).
Arvind Subramanian CC BY-SA 2.0 PopTech
The third session focused on the proposals in the Economic Survey, written by Subramanian. (Subramanian himself was unable to participate in the event; however, an aide delivered a presentation on this behalf.) Whereas both Bardhan and Joshi argue in favor of universality, the Economic Survey’s proposal is written under the assumption that, in practice, no program can achieve full universality; thus, it ultimately focuses on a “de facto UBI” with a “quasi-universality rate” of 75 percent. In the document, Subramanian considers several methods by which to phase in a (de facto) UBI, such as introducing the program first only for women or members of other vulnerable groups, or only in urban areas, or allowing beneficiaries of current welfare programs to opt instead for unconditional cash transfers.
Panelists on the Economic Survey proposal included Ashwani Saith (Institute of Social Studies, The Hague), Rohini Somnathan (Delhi School of Economics), and Shekhar Shah (National Council of Applied Economic Research, New Delhi).
Renana Jhabvala, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 ILO in Asia and the Pacific
Finally, Jhabvala presented “perspectives from the field,” reviewing the results of the UBI pilots conducted by SEWA in rural villages in the state of Madhya Pradesh. Contrary to worries that a UBI would lead to higher spending on temptation goods, the pilots revealed no increase in alcohol consumption. Furthermore, the short-term UBI was associated many positive effects, including better nutrition, a decrease in serious health problems, higher rates of school attendance, lower debt, and greater job opportunities, especially for women. A follow-up study conducted earlier in this revealed several lasting effects in the villages in the study, as compared to control villages; these included higher incomes, especially for women, and lower rates of alcohol consumption. Other effects, however, were seen to have ended quickly after the termination of the pilot program, such as increase enrollment of children in private schools.
Panelists on the SEWA pilot study were Jeemol Unni (Ahmedabad University, Institute for Rural Management Anand), S.M. Vijayanand (Former Secretary, Panchayati Raj, Government of India and Former Chief Secretary, Government of Kerala), and P.K. Joshi (International Food Policy Research Institute, New Delhi).
A closing session, chaired by MP Jay Panda, was held after the four technical sessions.
For more information, see the IHD website, which includes a press release summarizing the event, as well as a booklet containing a full schedule, speaker and panelist bios, and background reading for all keynote lectures.
Cover Photo: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 sandeepachetan.com travel photography
by Andre Coelho | Jul 4, 2017 | News
Arun Jaitley. Credit to: The Indian Express
India’s Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, has commented on the nation’s most recent Economic Survey, tabled in Parliament on 31st January, 2017. He himself presented it, just before the day on which the Indian budget was presented, and its contents were discussed previously.
Universal basic income (UBI) has been gaining attention in India in the past few months, and the first Indian National Conference dedicated to UBI was held in March of this year. In his recent remarks, however, Jaitley expressed concern that UBI may not yet be feasible, due to “political limitations”. It’s unclear at the moment what might be causing this “political limitation”, although other leading Indian economists, such as Amartya Sen, have also expressed doubts about the implementation of UBI in India. In spite of this cautious declaration, Jaitley has also said, “I’m fully supportive of his idea (UBI) but realizing limitations of Indian politics”.
While some economists such as Sen and Jean Dreze have been skeptical about UBI as a possible social policy option for India, others such as Pranab Bardhan, Sudipto Mundle and Vijay Joshi have recently prescribed UBI for the country.
The Economic Survey, a document prepared by Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian and his team, holds that UBI is a powerful idea, although not ready for implementation. It also states that UBI can be “an alternative to a plethora of state subsidies for poverty alleviation”, and that it “would cost between 4% and 5% of GDP”. It also discusses some options to phase in a UBI in India. These key points about UBI in Economic Survey can be read in this short summary.
More information at:
Kate McFarland, “India: Government Economic Survey presents case for basic income”, Basic Income News, February 4th 2017
Austin Douillard, “India: First National Conference on Universal Basic Income”, Basic Income News, May 2nd 2017
Kate McFarland, “Amartya Sen: India not ready for a basic income”, Basic Income News, March 6th 2017
PTI, “Finance Ministry discussing bad bank, basic income proposals: Arun Jaitley”, The Indian Express, June 11th 2017
