A Knowledge Partner for Bharat Ko Janiye Quiz
KNOWING NEW INDIA
4 YEARS INTO TRANSFORMING
D.K.HARI D.K.HEMA HARI
BHARATH GYAN SERIES Bridging Worlds Thru Knowledge Experience The Knowledge Of India
Knowing New India A Bharat Ko Janiye Quiz Reading Material
Contents
PREFACE – WHY THIS WORK AND WHY NOW? ...... 10 About this Work and Its Need ...... 10 Why From 2014? ...... 11 Why in 2018? ...... 12
FOREWORD ...... 16
ABOUT BHARATH GYAN ...... 18
ABOUT AUTHORS ...... 21
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ...... 25
PART 1 – A TRANSFORMATION STORY ...... 27
2014, A BENCHMARK YEAR ...... 28 Significance Of The Year, 2014 ...... 28 A Power Shift In Politics ...... 28 A Power Shift To People ...... 28 Emergence Of A New Image ...... 29
TRANSFORMING THE NATION INTO A NEW INDIA ...... 32 Fundamental Needs Of A Nation ...... 32 Wealth Of A Nation ...... 32 Role Of A Government ...... 33 Indian History of Governance ...... 34 Self-Reliance In Pre-Colonial Times ...... 35 Exploitation During Colonial Times ...... 35 Restrictive, Socialist, Licence Raj During Nation Building ...... 36 Liberalization For Nation Reform ...... 38 Collaboration for Nation Transform ...... 39 A New Framework For Nation Transformation ...... 40
STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK ...... 42 The Background ...... 42
PLANNING OF GOVERNANCE INFRASTRUCTURE ...... 43 NITI Aayog - A Planning Change ...... 43
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MORE POWER TO STATES ...... 44
SCRAPPING OBSOLETE LAWS ...... 45 A Legal Step In Modern Times ...... 45 Some Sample Archaic Laws ...... 45
A RECORD TRANSFORMATION ...... 48 Reform, Perform, Transform ...... 48 Transforming Step By Step ...... 48 The Emerging New India ...... 52
ICONS FOR NEW INDIA ...... 53
PART 2 – MAKING WAY FOR WEALTH ...... 58
CORNER STONES OF MAKING WAYS TO MAKE WEALTH ...... 59
MAKE IN INDIA ...... 60 The Endeavour ...... 60 The Emblem ...... 60 The Emphasis ...... 61 The Effort ...... 61 The Extent ...... 63 The Effect ...... 66
STARTUP INDIA CAMPAIGN ...... 68 Helping Startups ...... 68 Abolition of outdated laws ...... 68 Three Pillars of this Program ...... 68 I-Made ...... 68 Mudra Banks ...... 69 Other Aspects of this Campaign ...... 69 New India - A Job Producer ...... 69
ATAL INNOVATION MISSION (AIM) ...... 71 Tinkering Labs – An Innovative Scheme ...... 71
DEVELOPMENT OF DEVELOPMENT INFRASTRUCTURE ...... 73 Importance of Building Roads ...... 73 Building New Roads ...... 75 Building Bridges and Tunnels ...... 77 Furthering Railways ...... 80
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The Big Tickets...... 81 Bullet Trains ...... 81 Train18 and Train 20 - Engline-less Train Sets...... 82 Innovations Aplenty ...... 85
APPROPRIATE USE OF RIVER WATER ...... 86 Indus for North West India...... 86 Brahmaputra for North East India ...... 86
GST - SINGLE TAX, LESS TAXING FOR PEOPLE ...... 89 A Single Tax System ...... 89 Gain For Consumers In New India ...... 90 Co-operative Federalism ...... 90 Same Tax for the whole country ...... 90
PART 3 – CREATING WAYS TO SHARE...... 91
CREATING SECURE SHARING SYSTEMS ...... 92 Need for Secure Channels ...... 92 A Bemoaning Situation ...... 92 Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) ...... 93 Concrete Steps for End to End DBT ...... 94
LEGALIZING A UNIQUE ID - AADHAAR ...... 95 AADHAAR - A Unique Id ...... 95 Legalizing AADHAAR as the Unique Id ...... 95
A LINKED BANK ACCOUNT - JAN DHAN YOJANA ...... 97 Financial Facilities to the Needy...... 97 A World Record ...... 97 What Is A Yojana? ...... 98 What This Yojana Unites? ...... 99 Why This Yojana? ...... 99
DBTL - AN END TO END DBT FINALLY ...... 101
MANN KI BAAT – GOVERNMENT TO PEOPLE CONNECT ...... 102
PART 4 – CLEANING ROAD TO HEALTH ...... 103
HEALTH OF A NATION...... 104
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SWACHH BHARAT MISSION ...... 106 Drive for a Clean India ...... 106 A Record Drive ...... 106 A Drive Through History ...... 106 Drive for a Clean India ...... 107
CLEAN NEIGHBOURHOOD - STOPPING OPEN DEFECATION ...... 109 Stopping Littering ...... 109 Icons To Improve Image ...... 110
CLEARING SLUMS - PRADHAN MANTRI AWAS YOJANA ...... 113 Housing For All ...... 113 Why This Yojana? ...... 113 For Urban And Rural...... 114 10 Million Homes ...... 114 Interest Subsidy Too ...... 115
CLEAN ECONOMY - ANTI CORRUPTION ...... 116 Steps Taken Against Black Money And Corruption ...... 116 Voluntary Surrender...... 116 Linking Bank Accounts With AADHAAR And PAN ...... 116 SIT On Black money ...... 116 Demonetization ...... 116 Action Against Shell Companies ...... 117 Prohibition Of Benami Transactions ...... 117 A Policy And Law To Sell Enemy Property ...... 117 Declaring Economic offenders ...... 117 De-structuring Of Economic Assets ...... 117 Tightening Of Audit Procedures In Banks...... 118 No Scams ...... 118
CLEAN MONEY – DEMONETIZATION, WAR AGAINST BLACK MONEY ...... 120 8th November, 2016 – A Red Letter Day For Black Money ...... 120 The Demonetization Process ...... 120 Objective ...... 121 Three Waves of Plunder ...... 122 The Third Wave Of Plunder ...... 123 India’s Age Old 4 Prong Approach For Complying ...... 123 Carrot and Stick Approach ...... 125 The Silent Operation ...... 125 New Lease On A Long Leash ...... 126 Success of Steps Taken ...... 126
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Swiss Banks – A Tax Haven, No More ...... 127 A People’s Victory ...... 128
HEALTHY GENDER RATIO – BETI BACHAO, BETI PADHAO ...... 129 Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao ...... 129 Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana (SSY) ...... 129 History of Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao ...... 130
HEALTHY GENDER BALANCE – WOMEN EMPOWERMENT ...... 132 Mahila E-Haat ...... 132 STEP ...... 132 Nari Shakti Puruskars ...... 132
EQUAL GENDER JUSTICE – MARRIAGE RIGHTS ...... 133 Abolition of Triple Talaq and Nikah Halala for Muslim Women...... 133
SAFE SOCIETY – PROTECTION OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN ...... 134 One Stop Centre Scheme ...... 134 Working Women Hostels ...... 134 For Their Safety ...... 134
HEALTHY SOCIETY - WELLBEING OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN ...... 136
CLEAN HOMES – POLLUTION FREE COOKING FACILITY ...... 137 Ujjwala ...... 137
ACCESSIBLE MEDICARE - JANAUSHADI ...... 138 Making Medicare Affordable ...... 138 A Wide Margin ...... 138 The Big, Generic Step ...... 138
HEALTHY FARMING – SOIL HEALTH CARDS ...... 140 Health of The Land ...... 140 Need Of A Helping Hand ...... 140 Soil Health Cards ...... 141
HAPPY FARMING – A FORMULA FOR PROFITABILITY ...... 143 A Crying Need ...... 143 A Thanking Prayer ...... 143 Bringing Back The Smile ...... 144 A Formula For Farmers ...... 145 Benefits of Increasing MSP...... 145
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HEALTHY FOOD – CAREFUL CHOICE ...... 146 Why MSP for Kharif? ...... 146 A Health Driven Decision...... 147
WHOLESOME EDUCATION – OPENING MIND, OPEN FOR ALL ...... 149 Progressive Education ...... 149 Progress of Education ...... 149 Scholarships for Minorities ...... 150 Improving School Education ...... 151 Higher Autonomy In Higher Education ...... 153 Self-Education for All Through SWAYAM ...... 154 Self-Study To Self-Sufficiency ...... 156
EFFICIENT ENERGY – EESL ...... 157 Efficient Energy Production, Efficient Energy Utilization ...... 157 UJALA ...... 160 Making A Choice Between Free Vs For A Price ...... 161 Throwing Light On A Doubt ...... 161
CLEAN ENERGY - SOLAR ENERGY ...... 163 Everlasting Solution to Power Crisis ...... 163 Renewable Energy And Solar Energy ...... 164
CLEAN MINDS - INTERNATIONAL DAY OF YOGA ...... 166 Why June 21st ? ...... 167 A fitting Tribute ...... 168 A Sign Of India’s Growing Soft Power ...... 169
PART 5 – SECURING PEACE & HAPPINESS ...... 170
MARCHING TOWARDS PEACE AND HAPPINESS ...... 171 A Safe New India ...... 171 A Just New India ...... 171 A Friendly New India ...... 172 A Firm New India ...... 172
SIGNIFICANT REDUCTION IN TERROR ATTACKS...... 175
SURGICAL STRIKES ...... 179 Surgical Strike At Indo-Myanmar Border ...... 179 Surgical Strike At Pak Occupied Kashmir (PoK) ...... 179 Military Strength, Political Will and Moral Character ...... 180
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RESPECT FOR ARMED FORCES ...... 182 A Shift in Attitude ...... 182 One Rank One Pension ...... 183
DIPLOMACY TRANSCENDING GOVERNMENTS FOR HUMANITY ...... 185 An Odd Border And An Odder Barrier ...... 185 Odd Challenges, Even More Hardships ...... 186 A Milestone Agreement Signed ...... 187 Commitment To Integrate and Act ...... 191
FENCING BORDERS ...... 193 India’s Borders ...... 193 Indo-Bangladesh Border ...... 193 Indo-Pakistan Border ...... 194
FOREIGN POLICY AND EXTERNAL AFFAIRS ...... 196 Securing Friendship Ties ...... 196
NEW INDIA’S STRIDES AND IMPRINTS ON THE GLOBE ...... 198 The Many Firsts ...... 198 The Act-East Act ...... 199 Entry Into Regimes ...... 200 Reviving CHOGM Connects ...... 204
OVERCOMING INTERNATIONAL BARRIERS LOCALLY ...... 205 SAMEEP - Bringing International to Nationals ...... 205 Easing Foreign Travel For Its Citizens ...... 205 Diplomacy For Domestic Development ...... 205 E-Migrate...... 206 Students Registration Portal ...... 206 Use Of Social Media For Emergencies ...... 207 Evacuation Of Indians ...... 207 Pleading For Pardon or Justice ...... 208
OPENING DOORS TO INDIA GLOBALLY ...... 209 Pravasi Bharatiya Divas ...... 209 Bharat Ko Janiye ...... 209 Know India Programme ...... 210 Bilateral Summits ...... 211 Home Away from Home ...... 211 International Marriage Disputes ...... 212
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PART 6 – CHANGES IN NEW INDIA ...... 213
THE CONTRASTS ...... 214 Change in Functioning ...... 214 Change in Image of India ...... 215
GALVANIZING PEOPLE – GANDHI TO MODI...... 217 Mahatma Gandhi ...... 217 Narendra Modi ...... 217 Gandhi To Modi – Free India To New India ...... 220
HISTORY IN MAKING ...... 221 A Time of Honesty ...... 221 A Window of Despair ...... 223 The Gateway To A Clean India ...... 223 A White Shift ...... 224 The Ray of Hope ...... 224 The Light At The End ...... 224 A Leader At The Helm ...... 225
EPILOGUE ...... 228 A Growing Work ...... 228 A Giving Civilization ...... 230
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Preface – Why This Work and Why Now?
About this Work and Its Need This work is a narration of the transformation of India into a New India, which was set into motion from 2014.
It is about a New India that looks likely to emerge, changed in many respects, from around 2020.
Many a time, work done by successive Governments, are seen in disconnect from one another. Likewise, different steps taken by different ministries of the same Government, are also seen in isolation.
The vision, the purpose and the impact, behind the various steps taken by a Government are not known to the common man due to various reasons such as
the size and scope of the entire system being as big as the Government and the country
the lack of “socially minded” people / bodies without political and commercial media agenda to speak about the work of a Government in a wholesome manner to the common man
the lack of steps to educate the people on the knowledge and information needed to understand the rationale behind the steps taken
the lack of efforts to rationally connect the decisions being taken by the Government of the day, with the happenings of the larger past which is the legacy and at times, baggage of the nation, that is actually carried by the Government of the day, and
the absence of steps to place a Government’s action vis-a-vis the ethos, character and assets of the nation, to enable people to emotionally relate to the Government’s policies and actions. For, each step taken by the Government, affects mainly people and their progeny in the short and long run and
This work looks at the schemes and programs launched by the Indian Government of 2014, in the context of the progress of India. For, it is context, which can help in gaining an understanding of anything in a wholesome manner.
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This work therefore includes where possible, the context for understanding and knowledge for appreciating what has been taking place in India since 2014.
It is a work aimed at using the Transforming Governance in India from 2014, as a model for educating a common-man about
the fundamentals of Governance,
the work of a progressive Government and
the larger issues that confront a Government, using the present Indian Government, as a good example of a forward looking, democratic Government in the present world and in the present state that India is in.
Care, has hence been taken to avoid too much data, charts and economical and technical terminologies in this work.
Why From 2014? India is fortunate in that, it has two layers that go to form the Government.
1. A Bureaucratic Layer for administration 2. A Political Layer for policy making. While it is the political layer, which gets a mandate from the people to run the country for a maximum of 5 years at a go, the administrative layer, more or less stays the same, to provide continuity to the various tasks as per the established vision and policies of the nation.
Unless there is a strong override from the political layer, the administrative layer can continue to keep the nation going with the existing policies and system.
Policies and systems get formed / reformed / transformed only with the initiative of the political layer, which in turn represents the people’s will and mandate.
Hence, major changes can happen in a nation like India
only when a nation gives a unanimous mandate and
that too, to a political layer which projects a clear vision of where it would like to take the nation in the next few decades.
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2014, was one such eventful year in India’s history when both these criteria happened to be met.
The rest is history in making.
Why in 2018? In 2018, at the time of the 1st edition of this work, 4 years since the time of the new leadership in India, history indeed seems to be in the making.
The Promise The political layer that moved into the Government, had stepped in with a promise of transforming the Governance system itself, so that the future decades of India, can run pretty much in a development mode.
The Act Starting 2014, the system of Governance has therefore been undergoing a transformation at a scale and speed, the likes of which are startling to all – the majority of the population who stand to benefit from the change as well as the few who will be losing their advantage from an earlier leaky system.
The Challenge Transformations have happened many times, the world over, as part of nation building exercises. Typically, they have happened soon after major calamities like natural disasters, wars or independence movements.
Such programs are relatively easier, smoother to roll out and quicker to show results since they are green field exercises with nothing existing to maintain or disturb. The people too would be in a frame of mind to accept and overlook small irritants in the road to progress, as they had nothing in the first place.
Whereas, in the case of transforming a running economy, without any force majeure bringing in an irresistible compulsion or superior strength to transform, every little step taken is prone to questioning, criticism, debate, protests, stays etc. from disruptive energies within and outside the nation.
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Even the very same population that gave the Government the mandate to transform Governance will find the steps irksome in the face of the trials and tribulations that may arise during the transformation.
Same, is the state of India today, where a Government, mandated by people, has embarked on the road to transform the already running economy of India, during a seemingly peaceful time window.
The Predicament It is very much like trying to lay a new road in a desert versus trying to build a flyover on an already busy road and junction.
While the new road project may get completed quickly and win accolades, the second task will invite a lot of criticism and complaints until completion, after which, all these hassles will be forgotten as people start enjoying the new facility.
Further, while the first task will attract praises as an achievement, the second task, like a hygiene factor is realized only when missing.
A transformation for good governance is like the second.
A transformation, for good Governance, when successfully accomplished, will be accepted “matter of fact”, by the people.
But, if not taken up at all, the absence of good Governance will be felt strongly across the land, not just in the short term but will impact the future for the coming generations too.
The Will On one hand, lack of good governance, will make the people criticize and complain against the Government for bad performance.
On the other hand, transforming the Governance will also make the people criticize and complain against the Government for hitches and glitches that are bound to arise.
But, India had reached such a situation, where a Government had to bite the bullet to bring about a transformation in Governance and overall character of the nation. The Government of 2014, decided to take this bold step.
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In such a transformation exercise, one many not see radical changes in the organization of the Government, or its day to day functioning, or changes in situation on the ground initially, that can convince people that changes are indeed happening.
However, a bird’s eye view of the policies, projects, schemes and steps taken by the Government can give a more complete picture of where a nation was, where it stands and where it is heading.
This Labour This writing is one such effort of raising one’s vision above daily happenings to understand the path taken by India since 2014 so that
1. one can connect and relate to the daily events and news better, with a sense of perspective
2. one can analyze the path being trod and express views and opinions better, with maturity and sagacity
3. one can accept and adapt to the changes better, with a sense of partnership and responsibility
4. one can see and relish the concerted effort that goes into the transformation of a nation, something that does not happen often in the world during one’s lifetime.
The Timing India’s leadership and Governance team are due for assessment in 2019.
In the US system of Governance, the term for a President and his administration is 4 years, unlike 5 years in India. The founding fathers of USA, over 200 years ago itself, thought it fit that 4 years was sufficient enough time for an administration to bring in policy changes and administer them reasonably well.
Given this thought, 4 years is a reasonable period to assess and try to understand what has happened to India in these years.
Is it headed in the direction of a New India as promised by the team that sought to Govern India and change India’s Governance itself?
What is New India?
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What is its purpose?
What is the need for it?
What are the steps being taken?
What has been the impact so far?
What do they signify for the future?
What will be the difference in New India?
Answers to such questions, foremost in the minds of all leaders of the world and every Indian
whether in India or in foreign soil, whether a citizen or a resident, whether by birth or by roots, whether young or old, is what one can expect to get, in this work of getting to “Knowing the New India”.
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About Bharath Gyan Bharath Gyan is a civilizational study initiative to compile and present the knowledge of India, its traditions, its culture, its global ties – in short, its ethos, from an Indian perspective to bring about a positive change in the mindset of Indians about themselves as well as the image of India in the global eyes.
Bharath Gyan’s 5 Step Approach to Transforming The Mindset Towards Indian Civilization
It is an endeavour to bridge old and new worlds by repurposing knowledge from the past, for the present and future, to experience, appreciate and apply.
Bharath Gyan has been collating specific, scientific knowledge of India, using ancient knowledge sources and modern scientific tools and methods, from a present day perspective and relevance.
The approach to studying the Indian Civilization focuses on the following aspects of the Civilization.
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Geography Historical Commerce, Societal Intellectual Cultural Connects Timeline & Economy, and Pursuits Expressio with other Timekeeping Prosperity & Governing ns Civilizatio Management Practices ns of Resources
Boundaries, From Veda, Water, Land, Law, Sciences, Arts, Japan, Extent, Rama, Vegetation, Admin, Technologie Crafts, China, Topology Krishna, Mines, Trade Social Org, s, Festivals, Russia, etc. Mahavira and Gender Spirituality Celebratio America, Jaina, Buddha, Navigation Balance, and ns and Europe, Adi Shankara, Religion Education Traditions Egypt, Alexander etc. Greece, and later Israel, periods Iran, S.E.Asia
The objective is to bring out this knowledge and wisdom, with relevance to current day topics of interest, trials and tribulations faced by Indians as well as the world.
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The objective is to build Confidence in the Indian minds with respect to their Civilization
so that they can Dare to do what it takes to make India a leading civilization once again,
not just for the sake of India,
but for the sake of humanity and Nature,
going by the past success record of the sustainable industry, trade, administrative, social practices of the Indian civilization and its and harmony with the world.
Art of Living - Bharath Gyan is an initiative instituted to bring out this knowledge through far reaching and engaging mediums so that it can be easily understood and applied by all across the world.
Major focus areas, based on the Indian Civilization’s success stories include,
1. Stress on Water Harnessing as a solution for regions of the world, which have periodic, short seasons of rainfall like the monsoons of India.
2. Showcasing the relevance of Nature and Organic Products based industry, as positive influencers of Economy and Lifestyle in tropical countries to keep Economy, Ecology and the Populace in good health.
3. Highlighting the issue of Virtual Water trade and the arising global imbalance
4. Stress on a paradigm shift from Gender Equality to Gender Complementary as the natural Mantra for restoring the Gender Balance in society
5. Tracing the early history and timeline of the Indian civilization, prior to the Alexander era.
6. What is Culture? Significance of Cultural Diversity and Secret of Harmony In Diversity.
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About Authors
D.K.Hari and D.K.Hema Hari
Introduction D.K.Hari and D.K.Hema Hari, a husband – wife duo of Management and IT professionals turned research collators, are the founders of Bharath Gyan.
They conceptualized and founded “Bharath Gyan” as an endeavour to fill the void in creating a positive and open enquiring mindset about the knowledge, practices and culture of ancient civilizations such as the Indian civilization, with an objective of going to the root of social problems and finding comprehensive solutions for the same.
A Challenge The knowledge of the Indian civilization is available scattered in various forms – books, manuscripts, oral tradition amongst scholars, various art forms, customs and traditions of the land.
The current generation faces a barrier in reaching out to this knowledge due to the limited access to such sources.
The ancient languages, the style of expression used and their approach to the subjects, which differ from the present way of expression, pose a challenge too.
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Their Approach With the help of
traditional scholars with a modern bent of mind and modern scientists open to traditional knowledge systems, all these sources of data have been carefully sifted through and verified, with an inquisitive, rational, logical and scientific mind to understand the evolution of the civilization from a fresh interdisciplinary perspective. The outcome of this analysis is the compilation of Bharath Gyan.
The knowledge of India embedded in books, manuscripts, oral tradition amongst scholars, folk lore, art forms, customs, archaeological artefacts etc. have all been brought together in this compilation.
Compilation The facts and data collated painstakingly, over the years since 2000, corroborate each other beautifully like pieces of a jigsaw and thus keep self-validating this growing compilation, spanning over 108 subjects.
Their compilation currently runs into about 500 hours’ worth of multimedia content which is currently being compiled into books, ebooks, articles, documentaries, short films and expositions for dissemination.
With factual content on the state of knowledge in India, its traditions and its sustainable practices, compiled with dedication, over the years, since 2000, the Hari couple have evolved into subject matter experts on the overall understanding of India from an Indian perspective, across ages from over 8000 years ago to the present.
Their USP is the range and depth of data they present on the Indian civilization from the perspective of India and an Indian ethos.
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Speakers Hari and Hema Hari are widely sought after as speakers on the Indian Civilization across India and the globe, to wide audiences ranging from the research community, to educational institutions, to Corporates, social organizations and in various conferences on social engineering, technology, management, history, tradition, culture and religion.
They are often consulted on the long term vision and direction to take by various social bodies.
They have given over 250 joint talks in India and abroad on diverse subjects to wide audiences viz
International conferences including o Civil BRICS, o Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, o World Sanskrit Conferences, o Conferences on Mahabharata, o World Ramayana Conferences, o International Women’s Conferences, o Ramayana Conferences for Tour Operators in Sri Lanka etc. o Conferences on Veda, Cosmology, Science, Technology and Spirituality o KAICIID Interfaith Conferences organized by Vatican, King of Saudi, Austrian Govt. Research institutions eg. Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc), Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Coast Guard, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL)… TED conducted talks Educational institutions, both private and public funded schools and colleges, various University Departments, UGC Faculty Refresher Courses etc. Corporates Professional bodies such as Project Management Institute (PMI), Madras Management Association (MMA), FICCI Ladies Organization (FLO), Madras Bar Association etc. and Social Forums, Organizations and NGOs in the field of Water, Agriculture, Education, Women’s Empowerment, Ancient Knowledge Systems etc.
They are also the Knowledge Partners for the “Bharat Ko Janiye” Quiz conducted by the Ministry of External Affairs for the Indian diaspora.
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Publications Based on their research, they have authored till date, 27 books and over 500 blog articles as well as produced 5 documentaries as well as over 100 short films that span a wide spectrum of disciplines.
They have started penning a monumental series called the “Autobiography of India” comprising of many multi-volume titles, of which, 2 titles, spanning across 9 volumes have already been published.
All their books have received Benedictory notes from Gurudev.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar of Art of Living and Forewords from stalwarts and experts in the respective disciplines that the book deals with.
Reach The Hari couple are actively in touch with the youth and public through social media such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Blog with everyday posts on the relevance of the day.
The website, www.bharathgyan.com contains more insights into their work. They can be followed on
BLOG http://bharathgyanblog.wordpress.com FACEBOOK www.facebook.com/bharathgyan TWITTER www.twitter.com/bharathgyan YOUTUBE www.youtube.com/user/bharathgyan SOULBOOK www.soulbook.me/bharathgyan
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Acknowledgement
We have been singularly fortunate to have been born in this land of ancient wisdom and seers, India.
We owe a lot to our parents who have brought us into this world and provided us with the right education, upbringing and guidance.
The values and traditions of this ancient civilization inculcated in us by our family and teachers are what have formed the basis for our work at Bharath Gyan.
We are indebted to our family and friends for their continued support and encouragement in our endeavour.
We owe a lot to our twin nephews who are a continued source of inspiration for us to write about all the knowledge we have gathered in our collation efforts and would like to leave behind for the next generations of not just India, but the world, to know about this great civilization called India.
Having embarked on our quest, many scholars, thinkers and students of the knowledge of India have come forward and helped us in our collation of the Bharath Gyan knowledgebase. Some have helped by offering data, while some others, through their questions that made us think and look for the data.
Many traditional scholars have patiently tolerated our inquisitiveness and have laboriously searched and retrieved from the ancient texts, the data we had requested of them and explained the same to us in simple layman terms. Without their mastery over old and new, their knowledge, their mind-set and support, this bridge from the ancient to the present day would never have been built.
Then faced with the task of dissemination, many friends and experts have come forward to help review our works and take it to stages of production. We owe a lot to their support without which our compilation could not have seen the light of the day.
We are grateful to Hon. Minister for External Affairs, Smt. Sushma Swaraj for giving us this opportunity to compile and present this picture of the emerging New India.
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We are indebted to His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar for the faith reposed in us and our work and for offering us a platform, to share the knowledgebase we have collated, with the community at large.
We would be failing in our character, if we do not acknowledge more importantly, the unseen forces of Grace, which have connected us up with these right sources of information and noble people just in time, just as we were looking for the information and help. The list is therefore very long and words fail us to thank everyone sufficiently.
Hence, we take refuge in the all encompassing words of the 18th century Indian poet Saint Thyagaraja –
Entharo Mahanu Bhavulu Anthariki Vandanamulu
There are many noble persons as well as ancestors (behind this work)
and we salute them all.
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PART 1 – A TRANSFORMATION STORY
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2014, A Benchmark Year
Significance Of The Year, 2014 2014 will be a benchmark year in the history of India. It will be seen as a year in which the scenario of political power balance in Independent India changed.
A Power Shift In Politics In 2014, the elections for the Lok Sabha, the Lower House of the Parliament of India or the People’s House, were held and the political party called the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the elections with a majority. This party formed the Government with Shri Narendra Modi as the Prime Minster.
It had defeated the incumbent, the other, large, national party of India, namely the Congress (I) which had evolved out of the Congress party of the Independence movement. The Congress and later Congress (I) had held sway over the governance of India continuously since Independence, though there were interim periods when politically, different Governments had come to power.
A Power Shift To People Interestingly, 2014 was the first time too that there was a change in how the Prime Minister was chosen.
Right from the first Prime Minister of Independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru, who was chosen by Mahatma Gandhi, until 2014, all Prime Ministers of India had been chosen and projected by the party or by the coalition partners coming together.
In the case of Narendra Modi, from the public expression before elections, it was clear that he was the popular choice of the people for being the Prime Ministerial candidate. His nomination was subsequently endorsed by the party.
It was thus for the first time, that the person to take on the role of Prime Ministership of India had been identified due to public demand rather than by party’s nomination.
It was a case of a leader emerging out of people’s choice than a leader put up by political calculations.
It was a case of voice of people winning over play of politics.
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Thus, India was seeing a change in ideology, approach and leadership after a long window of close to 70 years.
So what did this change in power mean to India?
Emergence Of A New Image This change in power, besides change in leadership to the dynamic Prime Minister Shri.Narendra Modi, also brought in a change in Governance right from
the hours of operation to
the ways of operation to
the spirit of operation in
various areas of operations, ranging from
Economy
Commerce
Agriculture
Irrigation
Manufacturing
Housing
Education
Cleanliness and Hygiene
Roads
Airports
Banking
Corruption
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Clean Energy
Foreign affairs
Security and Defence and
Many more ….
The net result of all these measures resulted in a sea change in the image of India both amidst Indians as well as in the eyes of the world.
A “New India” has arrived on the globe since 2014 with its image having evolved across times,
1. from its millennia old image of
an exotic land,
a land of wisdom,
a land of spirituality,
a land of knowledge,
a land of riches and
a land of diversity
2. to its 200 years old image of
a famine ridden land,
a poverty stricken land,
a superstitious land,
an illiterate land,
3. to its post Independence image of
a backward nation,
a backoffice country,
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a slow growth economy,
an indisciplined people,
an unclean land,
a corrupt land,
a communal land,
a conservative nation,
a diffident nation and
a brain drained nation,
4. to presently, its post 2014 image of
a bold nation
a global leader
a force to be reckoned with
an open and friendly nation
an emerging superpower
a resourceful land with resourceful people
a dynamic and vibrant nation and
a proud nation.
This New India has been consciously working on improving its image worldwide and at home, by working on improving ground conditions across the nation and beyond its borders.
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Transforming The Nation Into A New India
Fundamental Needs Of A Nation Three overarching needs of a nation, a civilization and its people are
1. Health
2. Wealth and
3. Security.
The final balance sheet of any Government should thus reveal and tally with regards to
1. How and how much wealth has been produced by the nation and its people?
2. How and how much of it has been spent on health of itself and its people? and
3. How are these 2 assets of the nation – health and wealth being protected and sustained by the Government for the Peace and Happiness of the people?
Wealth Of A Nation One of the current day measures of assessing a nation is by its economic status which is reflected by the growth of its GDP (Gross Domestic Product).
Many a time, more than the actual currency wealth stored with a nation, GDP which refers to the total market value of all goods and services that are produced within a country, per year, is an important indicator of the economic strength of a country. When adjusted for price changes as the Real GDP, it is regarded as a key indicator for economic growth.
According to IMF (International Monetary Fund)
"GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and services
— that are bought by the final user
— produced in a country in a given period of time (say a quarter or a year)”.
Thus it is production which can boost the GDP and hence economic status of a nation.
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How can a nation keep producing?
Mainly by leveraging its national assets such as
Land Water Minerals Forests and People. It is by protecting these assets, which a nation inherits from its ancestors and by putting them to productive use in a sustainable manner, that a nation can sustain production, trade, wealth generation and a growing GDP.
India has been fortunate to be endowed with
A large tract of flat, plain lands, exposed to good sunlight, ideally suited for agriculture through the year
Annual, abundant monsoon and a large network of perennial as well as monsoon rivers
Regions rich in mineral deposits
Reasonably good forest cover, though much lesser than before and
Large number of young, sincere and skillable work force to put all these resources to efficient use in a sustainable manner and generate food and wealth for all to live in comfort.
Role Of A Government According to innate Indian ethos, the role of Government is,
— to “Govern”, by creating a suitable framework for the Government — to keep track of these resources and
— to ensure that these are sustainably put to best use by the people — to generate best returns for the individual and for the nation
— in order to gain a better status of the nation, in the comity of nations.
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Role of a Facilitating Government – A Schematic View Indian History of Governance The history of Governance in India, can be seen as having followed certain distinct phases:
Self-reliant democracy in autonomous, village republics, during days of Prosperity from ancient times till start of Colonial rule, even when there were Kings and Kingdoms that were ruling these villages
Exploiting Oppression of Colonial Powers during Colonial Raj where India was ruled with an intention of exploitation and extraction of taxes through draconian laws
Licence Raj of a Socialist minded Government during the first 4 decades of Nation Building, when India started her journey as a new nation post-Independence
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Liberalizing Democracy by a Reforming Central Government since 1990s, when India started opening herself up to reform, to become a Developing nation
Collaborative Democracy by Central and State Governments since 2014, when India is seeking to transform herself into a truly Self-Governed and Developed nation, well placed in world economy.
Self-Reliance In Pre-Colonial Times Right from ancient times, India has been a democracy and as a seasoned democracy it had maintained a Governing ethos where it was the role of the Government / Administrative body to facilitate self-sufficiency and the role of the people to practice industry in a self- sufficient manner.
This indigenous Governance infrastructure took a hit under colonial rule.
Exploitation During Colonial Times The very word “Collector” for one of the key administrative roles at the District level in India, even today, is a baggage that India has carried with her from the Colonial Raj era, when this role was introduced by the British at a district level, with the sole objective of maximising collection of taxes and other payments from every nook and corner of India.
For, the fundamental objective of the Colonial Raj in India was to exploit India by
exporting all her Natural wealth and treasures to Britain extracting large amounts of money from Indians by taxing them atrociously creating lopsided trade policies that benefitted Britain and killed Indian industries and trade exporting human labour from India, worldwide and gaining financially by it. There was hardly any Governance to speak of.
For, Governance is created when there are minimum two parties involved –
one setting the rule and the other performing in accordance to it, towards a common objective of wellbeing of both .
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In the case of the Colonial Raj, the interest of wellbeing was totally one-sided – towards that of the British Empire.
The prosperity generating, indigenous, Indian model of Governance for self-reliance was driven out by the sceptre of the British Empire, both from the villages as well as from the memory of the people.
After over 200 years of such exploitation, it was time for India to overthrow the overarching rule of the British monarch and fight for freedom, which she did and managed successfully to gain Independence from the British in 1947.
Restrictive, Socialist, Licence Raj During Nation Building Ironically and sadly, the newly formed India in 1947, imprudently, much against her proven, innate style of self-reliant philosophy of flourishing, chose to follow a totally contrasting path of getting the Government to run various industries, inorder to create “equal”, “uniform” employment opportunities for all and thus built an oversimplified economic model.
From this choice was born the large Public Sector companies of India and a Government that started performing and citizens that started assessing the Government based on its performance to run these companies and provide for the nation.
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This flipped over philosophy of Governance further got strengthened under the rhetoric of “Socialism” during these critical years of Nation Building.
While India seemed to be growing, with many large, “Government owned” public sector companies dotting its landscape, the performing spirit in its masses had started coming down with the lack of direct ownership and stake in the economy.
The psyche of expecting the Government to run industries and provide the citizens with everything, right from livelihood, to life sustaining essentials, to living amenities was actually making India lifeless with no motivation, no competition, no innovation and no progression.
Rather, despite being a country with so much natural assets and so much man power, India was on the path of regression. The Government had become a provider of goods and services instead of providing Governance and was failing on both counts.
For, most of the Government owned Public Sector companies went into the red and had to be bailed out multiple times. It was constantly facing deficits even close to 40 years after Independence. Many of the economic policies had to be repeatedly amended.
The “Licence Raj” approach adopted by the Government, of laying curbs on opportunities, business growth and economic holdings of private individuals through heavy taxes was curbing India’s growth itself.
It was further strengthening the spread of Socialism.
The real spirit of Governance went under the “Social” image that now came to be associated synonymously with Governance.
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This reversal in the model of Governance, started leading to higher emphasis on politics, oppositions, appeasements, corruption and the likes in Governance, inorder to earn a good score from the people for its performance, than an emphasis on real “Good Governance”.
Instead of
- Government creating an enabling environment and questioning people for not working and performing to required levels,
- the Government as a body was trying to provide for its people and was also becoming answerable to them for not providing to required levels.
It is the difference between feeding a child versus teaching a child to eat, even after it has crossed its infancy.
It is like knowing when to let go while teaching a child how to ride a bicycle, especially, when others in the playground have already started switching over from a bicycle to a motorcycle.
It was time for India to let go too. Let go of its past colonial baggage and Socialist mentality in the light of the world too, shifting away from Socialism realizing the fallacies in it.
Liberalization For Nation Reform The task of putting India back on the rails, started with a liberalization policy in Governance.
The Licence Raj, which had prevented free enterprise and growth with its curbs, was dismantled and new Economic Reforms were ushered in to open up India to the world as well as the world to the Indians, in order to bring in measures to build a developing Indian economy.
While in the last 2 to 3 decades, reforms were being ushered in, to lift India out of the deadlock it had ended up in, what was missing was a concerted effort from all sides – both in Government and in Public, to actually effect a complete transformation towards prosperity generation.
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Collaboration for Nation Transform Hence, 2014 saw a Government coming to power on the strength of a promise of transforming not only the Nation, but also the model of Governance to create a lasting environment for developing prosperity.
Since then, with a philosophy of “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas”, “Collaboration of all, Progress for All”, the focus of the Government has been to bring about Nation Transformation through collaboration–
between people of India themselves between people of India and those of the world between people of India and the Government of India between the various departments of the Government of India between Government of India and other Governments of the world.
Transformation in Governance for Uplifting Economy Since 2014, India has been working to bring about a transformation in the Governance of India to
— maximize utilization of its assets for creating maximum benefits for the people
and at the same time
— minimize erosion of its wealth by minimizing corruption in society.
Transformation in Governance for “Good Governance” A look at the steps taken by the Government from 2014, will also reveal the bigger goal of the Government to take Governance back to a state where
— the people can perform with enablement and encouragement from the Government
and
— the Government can oversee with consent and compliance from the people.
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We will see how this transformation is gradually happening since 2014 and what its impacts have been, since then.
A New Framework For Nation Transformation The Government of 2014 reviewed, refined, rearranged, removed and instituted various departments, policies, procedures, schemes and systems so that each of the 3 fundamental needs of health, wealth and security are addressed in a wholesome manner and move towards the same goal without contradicting, but instead augmenting each other.
A new framework and model of Governance was created by filling the gaps, clearing obstacles and paving way for sustainable growth.
The 3 fundamental processes mapping to the 3 fundamental needs can be seen to have been addressed by
1. Making structural changes in Governance to enable Wealth creation and GDP increase
2. Creating development schemes to keep the nation and people, clean and healthy
3. Focussing on creating and securing the ecosystem that contributes towards peace and happiness of people such as
Distribution Channels to route the created wealth to cater to the needs and development of people while ensuring that no pilferage occurs enroute
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Collaboration Channels to truthfully communicate and collaborate for business, pleasure, leisure and culture not only within the nation but also with the international community and secure more friends globally
Defence Lines to guard the borders and secure the health, wealth and happiness of the nation.
The steps taken, departments created, policies and schemes introduced, projects initiated, public touch points and interfaces developed with an aim to transform India into a New India, can be mapped to the basic model of a Governance framework as follows.
A Juxtaposed View by Bharath Gyan of the fundamental role of a Facilitating Government with the Government Schemes introduced since 2014 as part of a Nation Transformation exercise
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Structural Changes In Governance Framework
The Background It was close to 70 years since India’s independence. Many of the systems, planning processes, methodologies had become outdated as they belonged to a different era. It was the right time to look into all these things and to bring the systems
up to date with modern thinking, in line with the idea of a New India, in line with the aspirations of the youth and in line with Digital India. This meant that the changes required could not be just cosmetic, but structural.
But structural changes can cause a lot of disruptions too and prove to be risky in politics.
Also, the issue with structural changes is that a lot of effort, time and cost have to be invested, but the results will be seen in a decade or two.
Someday, somebody has to dare to take decisions regarding structural changes.
So, the government, in its tenure from 2014, under the leadership and vision of the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, boldly embarked on the mission of bringing about structural changes in the interest of the nation and its future. It is commendable that this government has thought from this larger perspective and taken the decision to go for systematic structural changes.
This step of the Government has been analyzed and facets of the change has been brought out in the book, “Marching with a Billion” by Udai Mahurkar, a senior journalist with the India Today group.
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Planning of Governance Infrastructure
NITI Aayog - A Planning Change One of the structural changes made is the abolishing of the Planning Commission and establishment of the Niti Aayog.
The National Institute for Transforming India, also known as Niti Aayog is a policy Think Tank of the Government, which designs the policy and programs of the government, while also giving technical advice to the Central and State Governments, based on research and innovation.
The present Government felt that the Planning Commission, which followed a Top Down approach, had become redundant and was no longer suitable for the present needs and reforms needed.
Niti Aayog is a platform to bring together all the states on national interest. It is an important structural change that has taken place under this government.
Prime Minister conducting a meeting of Niti Aayog, with the Chief Ministers of different states
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More Power to States In the Union of India, there exist two levels of government, Centre and the State.
In the last 70 years, the collection of revenue was lopsided, towards the Centre and the fund allocation too was done by the Centre to the state, based on what the Centre thought, was appropriate.
So, the Centre, as the fund allocating body, had the upper hand.
With the implementation of a new taxation system for Goods and Sevices in New India, 50% of the collection was straight away transferred to the state.
Apart from this, under various policies, the government of India, has decided to allocate and transfer larger percentage of funds to the states.
There has always been a tussle
between federalism and regionalism and
between centralization and decentralization.
The New India model is one, which combines the flavours of all 4 models to create an indigenous model that can work for the India that has emerged out of all its history and modern developments.
This government has taken one big step in the direction of indigenization and a more Indian ethos based idea of decentralization, away from the earlier colonial hangover of the British system to centralize everything.
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Scrapping Obsolete Laws
A Legal Step In Modern Times New India has gone ahead with repealing old and outdated laws.
While only 1301 outdated laws had been abolished in the last 64 years before 2014, since then, the Government has acted swiftly in scrapping atleast 1160 obsolete laws.
Some Sample Archaic Laws Some of these laws include,
License to kill and capture wild elephants in certain circumstances which had encouraged poaching.
Segregation and medical treatment of lepers.
Allowing use of courts in Bengal, Assam and Punjab, by those who have migrated to Pakistan.
The power to regulate newspaper prices.
Disqualifying Inspectors with knock knees, pigeon chest, flat feet and hammer toes and condition that Inspectors should have well-brushed teeth.
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Toll tax for boats ferrying passengers across the river Ganga to not exceed two anna.
Taking necessary permits to fly kites since even Kites are Aircraft as per the Indian Aircraft Act of 1934
A 200 year old law that allowed the British Monarch to review decisions of Indian courts.
Like this, there were hundreds of archaic laws, that were part of the statute books, which the government has done away with since 2014.
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The laws need to be consistent with the times and scrapping of these outdated laws is an important step in shaping a New India.
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A Record Transformation
Reform, Perform, Transform The diktat of the Prime Minister to his ministries was “Reform, Perform, Transform”.
For creating any transformation, the steps can be broken down as
1. Reform – review and make suitable changes to the existing system keeping in mind the goal to achieve
2. Perform – act according to the revised and reformed system to prove the wisdom behind the reform
3. Transform - make the complete shift by discarding the old ways, tweaking and strengthening the new way, communicating the new way and its success so that it gets imbibed as “the one and only” way.
Transforming Step By Step
Reform In India, each term of the Lower House is 5 years.
This means that, this Government had just 5 years in that term to reform the system, perform as per the new system and transform the nation by showing progress and benefits gained.
Hence, it was imperative for the Government of 2014, to ensure that before the next elections in 2019, this transformation was fully rolled out. For, if such foundational steps are left incomplete, half way, it will not take the nation to the desired heights in the long term.
Even 5 years is still a very small time window for such transformations as it would need a few years more to test it, tweak it and tune it for maturity, efficiency and effectivity to see a really transformed nation.
The Government went about planning and rolling out the framework and changes to the system in the first couple of years itself so that the team would get atleast 3 years to perform and show some transformation.
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Perform Between 2015 and 2018, all the states of India have been onboarded under
1. the Make in India, wealth creation framework
2. the Swachh Bharat, cleanliness and health framework
3. the Jan Dhan, secure distribution framework.
The performance of each state under each of the various schemes rolled out, are being monitored, rated and published online for the nation to know, assess, assist and improve.
Transform – A Boosted Economic Growth Rate The speed and scale with which this Government worked, has made them achieve this transformation in a record time window of under 4 years.
The new government, when it came to power in 2014, had inherited a struggling economy. The GDP growth was almost stagnant with a growth rate of below 5%.
The slow, rate of growth of the economy of India, was derisively being dubbed as a “Hindu rate of growth” by the economists of the world.
However, over just the four years from 2014 to 2018, these transformational measures have given an impetus to the economy, which over these years has grown to around 7.7%, despite
o the world being under recession,
o demonetization having disturbed the cycle in India and
o introduction of a single GST (Goods & Services Tax) as the only Tax besides Income Tax
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India GDP Annual Growth Rate Source: Ministry of Statistics & Program Implementation This has resulted in India becoming the fastest growing economy in the world, which in many ways has raised India’s stature across the world, as a growing economic powerhouse.
India’s GDP Growth Rate vis-à-vis Other Nations’ GDP Growth
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To Conform This GDP trend reminds one of the leading rank of India in World GDP, for close to 2000 years from 1 CE to even as recent as about 200 years ago in 1820 CE, again published by OECD.
India’s share of world GDP had consistently been around 33% for over 1800 years, after which it fell owing to Britain’s lopsided policies towards India. Infact, right from 1000 CE, India has been consistently under one plunder after another.
Despite all these plunders, what this shows is that India’s manufacturing / producing capacity at 33%, is 1/3rd of that the world, due to abounding in both, natural resources as well as labour.
Tabled based on data put forth by Prof. Angus Maddison, in “The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective”, published by OECD
We find that with all the Reform, Perform, Transform, India is actually moving closer to “Conform” to her earlier image of a Goods and Wealth Producer.
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A Clean Form The states too have moved from a 38.7% Open Defecation Free status in October 2014 to 87.79% in July 2018.
The Emerging New India New India is thus emerging as an India
with a growing GDP and economic status,
which is cleansing its corrupt and unclean image
which is getting ready to create abundance
which is buoyant with optimism
and is filled with pride for its past ways, present achievements and is looking forward to a bright future.
We shall look at a few of these measures in some more detail.
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Icons for New India Iconic structures can be seen all over the world. They transcend generations to tell a story or emphasize certain milestone events/era.
The world has a habit of building such iconic structures as signs of commemoration like the
Statue of Liberty in New York in 1886 gifted by France to America, for commemorating alliance of France and the United States during the American Revolution as an icon of freedom
Eiffel Tower in Paris in 1889 for commemorating the centennial of the French Revolution and to demonstrate France's industrial prowess to the world.
Statue of Liberty Eiffel Tower
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Likewise, India too has had a similar history of building such iconic structures in the past, such as Vijaystambh and Garudastambh in various kingdoms across the land to commemorate various victories or projects, the famous ones being
the Vijaystambh at Chittorgarh
the Garudastambh established at Ujjain, which was later shifted to Delhi and stands even today as the Mehrauli Iron Pillar.
Vijay Stambh, Chittorgarh Garuda Stambh, Mehrauli
In the present, inorder to recapture the history and character of India and to keep it alive for serving as an inspiration for the coming generations of New India, 3 gigantic statues, each of around 300 feet height, have been planned to be installed in different parts of India.
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They will signify a sense of
1. strength,
2. unity and
3. resurgence.
Statue of Shivaji in Mumbai This statue will be in commemoration of one, who wrought about the tottering of the Mughal empire and united India
from Attock near Peshwar in the North
to Bengal in the East
to Sengottai in Tamil Nadu, in deep south,
under the Maratha Confederacy.
Thereby, the stronghold of Mughals on India was reduced and the British actually wrested India from the hands of mainly the Marathas and not Mughals.
Sardar Vallabhai Patel in Gujarat This statue will be in commemoration of one, who really stitched the modern political India together into one unit after the British left it loose with so many presidencies and princely states.
Rama in Ayodhya This statue will be in commemoration of one, who has embodied the soul and character of the civilization for 7000 years as a "Maryada Purushottam, meaning one who is an exemplar for character, since he stood for the 16 qualities that a man can aspire for as a human. Maryada means respect and Purushottam means an exemplary person.
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Maratha Confederacy during 1760 as printed by Longmans, Green and Co–London in 1905
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Map of India in 1941 with large number of Princely States. They were integrated post Independence. Colour Pink – British Territory, Colour Yellow – Princely States Source Administrative Atlas of India, published by the Census of India, 2011
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PART 2 – MAKING WAY FOR WEALTH
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Corner Stones of Making Ways To Make Wealth
The objective of increasing the rate of growth of GDP was addressed by creating a “Make In India” environment and platform that would
entice people, Indian and foreigners, to start ventures, big or small, in India
easen their process of setting up their venture
empower them with necessary infrastructure to carry out their venture
enable them in reaching their produce to their target audience
enrich the coffers of the nation with just and timely collection of fees, taxes and dues.
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Make In India
The Endeavour Make in India, an initiative launched by the Prime Minister in 2014, has transformed India into a Global-manufacturing hub, with increase in inflow of FDI.
Make in India is much more than an inspiring slogan. It is a movement with a strategy that inspires, empowers and enables in equal measure.
The Emblem
The logo of this initiative is the silhouette of a lion on the prowl, made entirely of cogs and wheels, symbolising manufacturing, strength and national pride.
A lion was chosen to represent this endeavour, since in Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s words,
“Make-in-India is a lion's step”.
It is an ambitious project of the government to attract the world to come to India once again, but with terms and policies well defined.
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The Emphasis Make in India aims at
Facilitating Investments for Ease of Business
Fostering Innovation
Building modern high class manufacturing infrastructure
Enhancing Skill Development.
"Zero Defect Zero Effect" is a slogan coined in this connection by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to emphasize on the production mechanism that will produce products
with no defects as well as
with no adverse environmental and ecological effects too.
The Effort Make in India is an unprecedented initiative
to comprehensively overhaul out-dated processes and policies
inorder to create a mindshift in the Government
from playing the role of an issuing authority
to becoming a business enabler,
in keeping with Prime Minister's tenet of ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’.
Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) The Make in India initiative is built on layers of collaborative effort spearheaded by the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) which worked with a group of highly specialised agencies to build brand new “Governance Infrastructure”.
These efforts yielded a road map for how to go about creating this Governance Infrastructure which is seen as the single largest “manufacturing enabling initiative” undertaken by a nation in recent history.
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This “Governance Infrastructure” has demonstrated the transformational power of “Public Private Partnership” PPP and has become the hallmark of the Make in India initiative.
This collaborative model has also been successfully extended to include India’s global partners.
In a short space of time, the obsolete and obstructive frameworks of the past were dismantled and replaced with a transparent and user-friendly system that is helping drive investment, foster innovation, develop skills, protect Intellectual Property (IP) and build best-in-class manufacturing infrastructure.
The Indian embassies and consulates have also been communicated to disseminate information on the potential for investment in the identified sectors.
Special management teams to facilitate and fast track investment proposals from specific nations have also been setup to offer wholesome support to those wishing to enter the Indian market, such as
‘Japan Plus’ which has been operationalized w.e.f October 2014
'Korea Plus', launched in June 2016 etc.
Invest India As part of Make In India, a Not for Profit organization called “Invest India” has been set up as the official, investment promotion and facilitation agency of the Government of India and mandated to offer free service to facilitate investments into India.
Invest India thus serves as the first port of call for potential investors keen to invest in India. It has signed Memoranda of Understanding/Framework for Investment Cooperation with select Investment Promotion Agencies in select countries which include,
JETRO (Japan), Invest in America (USA), UK Trade & Invest and UK India Business Council (UK), Invitalia (Italy), UBIFrance & Invest in France (France), KOTRA (South Korea),
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BOI Mauritius (Mauritius), Czech Invest (Czech Republic), Kaznex Invest (Republic of Kazakhstan), Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (Saudi Arabia).
Invest India also works closely with Indian missions abroad, foreign missions in India and bilateral/ multilateral agencies. The Extent Processes and policies in 25 Industrial Sectors of India were revamped under the “Make In India” initiative, namely
1. Automobiles 2. Automobile components 3. Aviation 4. Biotechnology 5. Chemicals 6. Construction 7. Defence manufacturing 8. Electrical machinery 9. Electronic systems 10. Food processing 11. Information Technology and Business Process Management 12. Leather 13. Media and Entertainment 14. Mining 15. Oil and Gas 16. Pharmaceuticals 17. Ports and shipping 18. Railways and Rapid Transit 19. Renewable energy
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20. Roads and Highways 21. Space and Astronomy 22. Thermal Power 23. Textiles and Garments 24. Tourism and Hospitality 25. Wellness and Healthcare
The most striking indicator of progress is the unprecedented opening up of key sectors to dramatically higher levels of Foreign Direct Investment. These include sectors such as
Railways,
Defence,
Insurance and
Medical Devices.
One of the major achievements of the “Make In India” initiative is that, India is now the world’s second largest producer of mobiles.
Five industrial corridors are being developed across various regions of the country, with strategic focus on inclusive development to provide an impetus to industrialization and planned urbanization. These comprise,
1. Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC)
2. Amritsar-Kolkata Industrial Corridor (AKIC)
3. Bengaluru-Mumbai Economic Corridor (BMEC)
4. Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor (CBIC)
5. Vizag-Chennai Industrial Corridor (VCIC).
In each of these corridors, manufacturing will be a key economic driver. It is expected that the projects along these corridors will help to raise the share of manufacturing in India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from the current levels of 15% to 25% by 2025.
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Smart Industrial Cities are also being developed along the Corridors. These cities are being developed to integrate the new workforce that will power manufacturing and will lead to planned urbanization.
This initiative converges, synergises and enables other important Government of India schemes, such as
Bharatmala - a centrally-sponsored and funded road and highways project of the Government of India
Sagarmala – a flagship programme of the Ministry of Shipping to promote port-led development in the country through harnessing India’s 7,500 km long coastline, 14,500 km of potentially navigable waterways and strategic location on key international maritime trade routes.
Dedicated Freight Corridors - a Ministry of Railways (India) initiative to undertake planning & development, mobilisation of financial resources, construction, maintenance and operation of dedicated freight corridor projects across the length and breadth of India
Industrial corridors - a package of infrastructure spending allocated to a specific geographical area, with the intent to stimulate industrial development
UDAN-RCS - a regional airport development and "Regional Connectivity Scheme" (RCS) of Government of India, with the objective of "Let the common citizen of the country fly", (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) aimed at making air travel affordable and widespread, to boost inclusive national economic development, job growth and air transport infrastructure development of all regions and states of India.
Bharat Broadband Network - a Telecom infrastructure provider, set up by the government of India under Telecom department for the establishment, management and operation of National Optical Fibre Network to provide a minimum of 100 Mbps broadband connectivity to all 250,000 Gram panchayats in the country, covering nearly 625,000 villages, to provide impetus to India's economy, more employment opportunities, improved delivery of Government services such as
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o online e-gram panchayat services, o e-governance, o e-education, o e-health, o e-medicine, o e-grievances, o e-agriculture, o e-citizen etc.
Digital India - a campaign launched by the Government of India to ensure that the Government services are made available to citizens electronically by improved online infrastructure and by increasing Internet connectivity or by making the country digitally empowered in the field of technology.
The Effect India emerged as the top destination globally in 2015 for foreign direct investment (FDI), surpassing the USA and China, with US$60.1 billion FDI.
Several states of India launched their own “Make in India” initiatives, such as
“Vibrant Gujarat” of the state of Gujarat "Happening Haryana" of the state of Haryana and "Magnetic Maharashtra” of the state of Maharashtra. All states of India are now onboard the “Make In India” platform and are monitored and rated on a Performance Dashboard, on the website of the DIPP, to keep the competition amongst states going.
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A sample view of the Performance Dashboard as published on the DIPP website on July 16, 2018
Combined with outcome of other initiatives, by the end of 2017, India rose 42 places on the Ease of doing Business index, 32 places on the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index and 19 notches in the Logistics Performance Index
Today, India’s credibility is stronger than ever. There is visible momentum, energy and optimism. “Make in India” has opened the doors for investment. Multiple enterprises are adopting its mantra.
The world’s largest democracy is well on its way to becoming one of the world’s most powerful economies.
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Startup India Campaign
Helping Startups Startup India Campaign was launched by the Prime Minister of India, on 15th August 2015, during his Independence Day address. This initiative of the government focuses on creating an environment that is conducive for the creation and growth of Startup companies.
The aim of this campaign is to create more ventures and more jobs through them.
Abolition of outdated laws It discarded some outdated State Government policies like License Raj, Environment Clearances, Land Permissions and Foreign Investment proposals that typically become stumbling blocks in the path of Startups.
Three Pillars of this Program This Program is based on 3 pillars namely,
1. Support for Funding and Incentives
2. Simplification and Handholding
3. Industry Partnership and Incubation
I-Made I-Made program is an important component of this initiative, which assists Indian entrepreneurs to create 1 million mobile app start-ups.
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Mudra Banks Mudra Banks scheme also known as Pradhana Mantri Mudra Yojana, is a part of this initiative, which provides micro-finance, low-interest rate loans to entrepreneurs from a low socio-economic background.
Other Aspects of this Campaign Some of the other key aspects of this campaign include,
10,000 crore fund for Startup Freedom from tax for the first 3 years of operation Release from the Capital Gain Tax for the first 3 years of operation Reduction in patent registration fees New India - A Job Producer The Startup India campaign, in many ways, has easened the process of creating Startups and facilitates entrepreneurs with ease of creating business.
The effect of all these steps was India’s position in the Global Innovation Index listing for 2018.
India’s position had climbed 24 notches up in just 4 years, from 81 in 2015 to 66 in 2018.
Global Innovation Index (GII) Listing for 2018
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This climb showed that India was producing more number of innovative entrepreneurs, innovative solutions and innovative products to meet the ever changing needs of mankind and Nature.
New India is emerging from being a job seeker, to becoming a job producer.
New India is also changing track from
“Gharibi Hatao” to “Samriddhi Badao”
i.e “Poverty Eradication” to “Prosperity Generation”.
For, prosperity and poverty are 2 sides of the same coin. You can see only one side at any time.
Where there is poverty, it implies there is no prosperity.
Where there is prosperity, there cannot be poverty.
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Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) As a bid to foster an innovative spirit in the nation, that leverages but extends beyond the innate Jugaad” capability of Indians, the Government also rolled out an innovative initiative called the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) to transform India into an Ever Innovating Nation by nurturing a spirit of innovation right from the stage of a school child.
AIM aims to put India on the path to sustained innovation so that a new era will finally emerge where India will become "an innovative society rather than an imitative society". Tinkering Labs – An Innovative Scheme As part of AIM, Atal Tinkering Labs project was rolled out to create a breeding ground for innovative children who can grow to be India’s future innovative entrepeneurs.
The objective of this scheme is to foster curiosity, creativity and imagination in young minds and inculcate skills such as design mindset, computational thinking, adaptive learning, physical computing etc.
Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) are dedicated works spaces where students (Class 6th to Class 12th) learn innovation skills and develop ideas that will go on to transform India. The labs are equipped to acquaint students with state-of-the-art equipment such as 3D printers, robotics & electronics development tools, Microcontroller boards, sensors etc.
The lab activities are designed to spur the spark of creativity and go beyond regular curriculum and textbook based learning. The labs will let students explore skills of future such as design and computational thinking, adaptive learning and artificial intelligence.
The first phase of Atal Tinkering Labs brought India a step closer to the mission of Creating One Million Neoteric Child Innovators in India by 2020.
ATLs will be hubs of innovation where young minds will accelerate their ideas to solve unique local problems. The goal is to set up 30000 such Labs all across India to work on thematic areas such as clean energy, water resources, waste management, healthcare, smart mobility and agri-tech.
Grant-in-aid that includes a one-time establishment cost of Rs. 10 lakh and operational expenses of Rs. 10 lakh for a maximum period of 5 years to each ATL are provided by the Government under AIM.
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Each ATL can conduct different activities ranging from regional and national level competitions, exhibitions, workshops on problem solving, designing and fabrication of products, lecture series etc. at periodic intervals in order to foster inventiveness among students.
Through such ATLs, AIM aims to reach 5 lakh schools to get 1 million students involved in Innovative Programs.
The ATL project itself qualifies to be branded as one of the most ambitious, most futuristic, most innovative programs to be ever rolled out by any Government across the world.
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Development of Development Infrastructure
Importance of Building Roads One of John F. Kennedy’s famous quotes on America, remembered by the world is
"It is not wealth that built our roads but roads that built our wealth.”
A fast road to prosperity can come over only a good infrastructure for transport and trade.
In America In America, before, during and after the World War II, as part of major reconstruction of their country, roads crisscrossing America from East coast to West Coast as broad freeways were built.
These roads indisputably have been the harbingers of economic surge of America.
American Freeways
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In Germany In Germany, between the world wars I and II, Adolf Hitler, one of the most infamous men of modern history, unleashed his tyrannical rule.
During this war torn rule of his, one of the things to note though is that, in order to revive the German economy, post its defeat in World War I and the consequent recession and inflation, he built an intricate network of broad, highspeed roads all across Germany. These roads led to quick movement of goods, which spurred the economic development of Germany. These, very same roads are now known to us as the famed German Autobahns.
A German Autobahn then and now.
In India In India, at the turn of the 21st century, in 2001, the largest highway project in India, the Golden Quadrilateral project was launched under the leadership of Prime Minister Vajpayee, as part of National Highways Development Project (NHDP).
The objective was to fill the vital need of an efficient road network which was essential to maintain national integration and socio-economic development in a large country such as India.
The Golden Quadrilateral is a network of highways connecting India’s four top metropolitan cities, namely Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, thereby, forming a quadrilateral.
The overall length of this quadrilateral is 5,846km consisting of four / six lane express highways. The whole length of the quadrilateral became operational by January 2012.
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A section of the Golden Quadrilateral
Though the project was delayed by 6 years due to land acquisition issues, the project which was estimated to cost Rs.600bn ($13.2bn), was completed at about half of the estimated costs, at Rs.308.58bn.
Though these highways put together account for just 2% of the country’s total road infrastructure, they carry 40% of the total national traffic.
The Golden Quadrilateral has been one of the major initiatives of the Government in the recent past, which has taken India to the next level in world class, road infrastructure.
Building New Roads However, over the last decade, the pace of development of transportation infrastructure in India had not been commensurate enough with the pace of growth of population,
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production and transportation needs due to various reasons that surround the nature of such projects and the corruption that was becoming rampant.
India is a land that has been widely populated continuously across times from millennia. Hence, most parts of India’s flat lands, other than the forests and the hills, are already in private possession with the people. This makes land acquisition a stumbling block in the progress of infrastructure development projects.
Further, in recent decades many such infrastructure projects had been caught in a deadlock situation in lending, due to the dead weight of many large loans that had turned into Non Performing Assets (NPAs) either due to the nature of the project or intentionally due to overlooking out of bias or corruption.
One of the aims of the New India government was not only to increase the pace with which roads were being laid,
from 11 km/day in 2013
to 27 km/day in 2015 and
to eventually reach 40 km/day , but to also smoothen out the process for reviving such infrastructure development, so that the pace can be sustained and even speeded up in future.
The speed of road construction has been one of the hallmarks of the Government that took over in 2014.
The government has to date built 175018 roads.
The government has since 2015 built 27 Kms of Highway roads every day.
A 16 Lane Highway A 16-lane highway has been constructed in Haryana, which is the widest and shortest highway in the whole world, spanning 3 kms. This highway in Gurgaon has greatly helped to decongest traffic in the National Capital Region of Delhi.
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16 lane highway in Haryana Building Bridges and Tunnels
Brahmaputra Bridge In May 2017, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated India’s longest bridge in Assam, spanning 9.3 km over the Brahmaputra River, promising to turn the north-east into a showpiece of infrastructure development.
India’s Longest Bridge over Brahmaputra
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The bridge reduced the distance by 165 km, saving six hours of travel time and fuel worth Rs 10 lakh per day in the region.
The bridge opened the gates for economic development in the region, leading to economic revolution.
The construction of this bridge and the benfits that it will bring should indeed be applauded given that the Brahmaputra is
one of the widest rivers in the world with a width of 10km in the plains
one of the rivers with tidal waves and also
one of the rivers prone to annual flooding.
New Ganga Bridge One of the bridges connecting the North and South of Bihar is the Gandhi Setu or Ganga Setu (bridge) spanning about 5.6 kms across the River Ganga near Patna, the capital of Bihar state.
However, with the traffic and other needs having increased manifold since 1982, when this bridge was built and to also cater to the enablement of Make In India in Bihar and North East India, the Government has started construction of a New Ganga Setu near Patna, to connect the North and South of Bihar.
High volume of traffic on the existing Ganga Setu near Patna
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The New Ganga Setu bridge, due for completion in December 2020, is expected to benefit over 9 million people.
Spanning 10 km long, this bridge is likely to become India’s longest bridge.
With a plan for six-lanes this bridge has been planned to facilitate traffic distribution on the international and regional trade corridors connecting the eastern, northern and north eastern states of India with Nepal.
Traffic bottlenecks will get reduced and swifter movement of goods between Nepal and India will be enabled making it a boon for transit exporters in both countries.
Likewise some more bridges too are in the pipeline for Bihar one of the large, resource rich, states of India.
Asia’s longest Bi-directional Tunnel In April 2017, the Prime Minister dedicated Asia’s longest bi-directional tunnel in Jammu to the nation. This tunnel, which is equipped with all safety features was built in a record span of 4 years, on the difficult terrain of mountains. The tunnel reduced the distance between Jammu and Srinagar by 41 kms, and saved around Rupees 27 lakh per day, depending on the traffic.
Asia’s longest Tunnel in Jammu
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Furthering Railways Besides the continuous upgrade of technologies and expansion of Railway lines, of Railway stations and of routes, to connect people and places across the length and breadth of India, the Government has also embarked on some ambitious, game changing projects with regard to the railway infrastructure, technology, facilities as well as public interface in India.
Connectivity & Capacity Laying of second, third, and fourth lines on busy routes to enhance network capacity Focus on Northeast connectivity through broadgauge conversion Electrification of routes for reducing carbon emissions, increasing efficiency and standardization
Image & Interface Introduction of Services and Facilities on trains, on par with developments in toursim and hospitality industry
Extension of public touchpoints for availing all these new / enhanced facilities into widespread platforms such as internet, mobiles, apps etc
Integration of railway services with other travel related needs such as hotels, tours, road travel using cabs and buses
A robust customer-interface ecosystem across social media platforms with medical help and other emergency help delivered on running trains, just a tweet away.
Responsiveness and Realtime addressal of Grievances including effective Lost and Found service.
A Game Changer Establishment of a Railway University at the existing premises of National Academy of Indian Railways (NAIR) in Vadodara, to offer UG and PG courses in Sciences and Business Administration connected with Transportation and Railways. It will also take over the existing 300 training institutes under the Ministry of Railways to present an upgraded model of education on all transport related subjects. The university will also conduct research specifically for upgrade of the Indian Railways and Transport system.
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The Big Tickets The big ticket announcements and projects from the Government to modernize Indian Rail technology include
Introduction of bullet train in India
Introduction of engine-less trainsets
Innovations to reduce Carbon emissions
Bullet Trains The Ahmedabad-Mumbai Bullet Train is the first Bullet Train project to be taken up by the Government as part of building a New India image.
Expected to finish by 2022 the Foundation Stone for the project has been laid by India’s PM, Narendra Modi as well as the Japanese PM, Shinzo Abe, since the technology for this train will be shared by Japan with India. The land acquisition process has started and the project is on course.
India PM, Narendra Modi and Japan PM, Shinzo Abe collaborating for Bullet Trains in India
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If Japan’s sharing of small car technology with the start of Maruti Suzuki, changed the face of India’s roads forever from the 1980s, its sharing of Bullet Train technology is expected to change the track of India’s mass transport systems forever now from 2020s.
Further, India has signed an MoU with Japan to get close to 3 lakh Indian youth practically trained in Japan for maintaining and operating these advanced technology based infrastructure systems and solutions.
Train18 and Train 20 - Engline-less Train Sets Another big ticket contributor to the New India image is the state of the art, engine-less, semi-high speed, train sets called “Train 18”. Product of a completely “Make In India” initiative and made out of the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai, this train can run at 160 kmph maximum with its transmission equipment mounted below the floor.
How can trains travel without engines?
Engine-less Vs Conventional Bogie The fundamental difference between existing engine driven trains and these trainsets as they are called is that, each coach in an engine-less trainset can propel itself so that jointly they run as a single train.
This is as against conventional trains, which have one engine that pulls all the “bogies” attached to it. While in India, a “Bogie” in common parlance means the entire coach, by definition, a “Bogie” is a chassis or framework carrying the wheelsets, attached to a vehicle, i.e the axles, wheels, suspension, brakes and such other transmission system components of every coach.
A compartment or coach comprises,
a iron or steel “shell” with seats and passenger facilities
which sits on a “Bogie” that runs on the railway track
pulled by an engine in the front.
Whereas in an engine-less trainset, the transmission equipment below the shell is like an engine by itself and can propel itself to move without having to be pulled by another external unit.
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A Bogie of Indian Railways
Train 18 Features
Zero discharge bio-vacuum toilets will be another new feature besides automatic doors, lowering steps, WiFi and on board entertainment like flights.
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With facilities, aesthetics and other passenger features on par with some of the best trains of Europe such as ICE, TGV, Thalys etc., the Train 18, with Airconditioned Chair Car coaches, will replace the existing Inter City express trains such as the various Shatabdi. The Shatabdi trains, despite being designed to run at 120 kmph, are run much short of that owing to various other issues.
Train 20 will be similar but with sleeper coaches and aluminium bodies instead of steel to make it light weight for high speeds. Train 20 will replace long distance superfast trains such as the Rajdhani trains.
Look of Train 18
These ICF Engine-less Trainsets have been built in India itself under the “Make in India” initiative at almost half the cost of importing them.
Alternates Besides Train 18 and Train 20 While the Railways is going about introducing the engine-less Train 18 / Train, it has also in parallel, mandated the replacement of the existing old ICF coaches of all conventional trains with LHB coaches with technology transfer from Alstom-LHB of Germany.
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LHB (Linke Hofmann Busch) coaches are those made of stainless steel shell mounted on Fiat bogies with disc brakes to give advantage of
Speed with Safety
Smoother ride
Better Interior facilities
Longer coach length for more capacity.
Innovations Aplenty A mood of innovations in the railways has been kicked up with the various railway manufacturing and R&D units taking the initiative to come up with innovative solutions. Some examples include
Diesel to Electric Engines – An indigenous, 100% “Make In India”, innovative project to convert Diesel Locomotives to Electric Track Locomotives to cut down on carbon emissions and increase power by 92%.
Innovative ideas Challenges – Ideas are invited from public as part of competitions to improve passenger comforts, station facilities, railway technologies, administration etc. to solve the challenges of operating one of the world’s largest rail network.
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Appropriate Use of River Water
The basis of any industry is water. Unless the issue of water is sorted for every region, each region cannot profess the industry suited for that region, even if it has all other resources available there.
Rivers of regions such as the North West and North East, hitherto ignored in terms of monitoring and management are being given focused attention besides other rivers which need steps towards cleansing, harnessing as well as interlinking.
Indus for North West India As per the Indus agreement of 1961, 80% of Indus water is to go to Pakistan.
This in itself is a lopsided agreement, since a larger amount of water has been unduly given to Pakistan, in comparison to the then existing international river water sharing agreements of riparian states.
However, even the limited water that India had the right to use, was not getting fully utilized by India and was hence being discharged to Pakistan, for the benefit of Pakistan.
After these many decades, New India has for the first time taken steps to fully utilize its share of Indus water for India itself, in the states of Jammu, Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan, where waters are sorely needed.
Three dams are under construction to prevent undue flow of Indus water to Pakistan.
The New India Government has decided to review the Indus pact.
Brahmaputra for North East India
The Brahmaputra River of India is also known as the Yarlung Tsangpo in China and has its source in a glacier in Tibet. The river then flows into three densely populated nations of the world–China, India and Bangladesh. India, is the middle riparian state of the Brahmaputra River.
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In India, Brahmaputra carries 29% of the total run-off of all rivers and therefore forms a critical component for the interlinking of rivers. Also, close to 44% of hydropower generation potential for India lies in the Brahmaputra river basin.
Hence, ensuring good flow in the Brahmaputra is essential for India.
At the same time, this river is prone to flooding and hence needs continuous monitoring to plan suitably. The hydrological data of this river, gathered upstream which forms an input for this monitoring is provided by China to India and Bangladesh for a fee.
China is also growing in population and urbanization and is therefore in need of water for its northern regions, which it has been trying to fulfil by diverting the Brahmaputra flow from South to North.
There is lot of suspicion and concern in India about China damming and using the Brahmaputra river water upstream itself for its own industries as well as to feed and irrigate the desert regions of China.
Water sharing between India and China is not governed by tight agreements or observing bodies. Infact, even for a fee, China avoids providing India with the hydrological data
As a comparison, it is to be noted that India, the upper riparian state for Indus, does not charge Pakistan a fee for providing such data on Indus. Infact, not just data for free, India had been providing Pakistan, more than the agreed amount of Indus water for free all these years.
It is hoped that with New India’s new image to engage fruitfully and intently with its neighbours, as well as the cordial relations developing between the Prime Ministers of India and China, Modi and Xi, India and China may be able to resolve their disputes over water and border soon.
Further, this issue of Brahmaputra, can also be circumvented without China’s support. There is copious rain in the states of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam, which waters flow into the Brahmaputra. If India harnesses these rain waters itself judiciously, Brahmaputra flow in India can be maintained.
Hence, attention towards Brahmaputra is beginning to form a key agenda of New India.
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New India has started taking a keen interest in this river
to plan its strategy for taking up this issue with China as well as
to curtail impact of China’s overwhelming influence on Brahmaputra by making India’s flow of Brahmaputra independent of China.
These steps can also give New India an upper hand with respect to its border discussions with China.
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GST - Single Tax, Less Taxing For People What is the point of making it easy for people to develop wealth if they eventually have to give most of it away in the form of Taxes?
Also, what is the point of making it more taxing to pay taxes than making wealth itself?
Who will want to make wealth, even it if was easy, if they have to go through a lot of labour just to pay taxes on that wealth?
Who will want to go through a lot of labour to pay taxes, when it was so easy to make wealth?
The taxing system of India was thus becoming a deterrent to
Pay Taxes and
Make wealth too, in awe of all the tax complications.
A Single Tax System Keeping all the above in mind, a new taxing scheme called Goods and Service Tax or GST was introduced by the Government for the benefit of manufacturers, consumers and the taxations bodies of New India.
It is a tax fixed on all goods and services, putting an end to the archaic multi-tax system in use till 2014, which included many different kinds of taxes such as VAT, Excise Duty, Entry Tax, Purchase Tax, Luxury Tax, Service Tax and Central Excise many of which varied based on each State’s law.
All this was burdening
the final consumer in terms of price
all the links in the manufacturing chain in terms of keeping track of the various taxes
auditing bodies to verify payments and
Taxing bodies to verify collection amounts and keep track of dues and balances.
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All taxes merged into GST Gain For Consumers In New India A Central and State GST is now being levied on products and services at 12 % each. This has benefited the final consumers a great deal, as the calculation of total cost, with GST, is less when compared with that including VAT, Excise Duty and other taxes.
Co-operative Federalism The state also benefits from this tax system as 50% of the tax goes straight away to the state government, which is an example of the cooperative federalism being promoted in New India.
Same Tax for the whole country GST also means that the whole country will have the same Tax system, irrespective of the state that the product or consumer belongs to, as all other state taxes have been abolished.
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PART 3 – CREATING WAYS TO SHARE
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Creating Secure Sharing Systems
Need for Secure Channels All the growth and development schemes designed by a Government cannot be rolled out at random.
A lot of pre-planning and foundational work has to be carried out to ensure that appropriate channels are in place before opening out the country to both Indians for benefits and foreigners for collaboration.
Not only are such channels to be put in place, but they also have to be secured to ensure that money or information does not fall into wrong hands.
A Bemoaning Situation The issue of the benefits issued by the Government, not directly reaching the people whom it is meant for, has been the bane of India, not just in recent times but for the last few decades. It has been bemoaned by many people repeatedly.
In this context, the comments of two people, with statistical inputs, stand out starkly.
In 1990, the then Prime Minister of India, Late Shri Rajiv Gandhi had lamented,
“Only 17 paise of every rupee reaches the villages”.
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In 2008, just 18 years later, Rahul Gandhi, his son, as a General Secretary of All India Congress Committee then, had this to say –
“Only 2 paise of every rupee spent reaches the people in the villages.”
Just goes to show, how much of deterioration had taken place in the intervening 18 years.
These were comments of people who have been in power the last few decades, yet, who have felt helpless and have bemoaned it.
Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) is a model that has been discussed in different economies of the world in the last decade as an effective and efficient interface between the Government’s various benefit schemes and its various sets of targeted recipients.
Prior to 2014, steps had been taken to roll out a DBT model in India. But efforts stood halfway, with only a half rolled out unique identification system and announcement of various subsidies.
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The complete distance of actually ensuring
a timely mechanism to disburse the benefits and
a secure receptacle for every intended citizen to receive it, had not been covered.
Concrete Steps for End to End DBT The body that started Governing, beginning 2014, started work on identifying and filling gaps in rolling out such a Direct Benefit Transfer, to reach benefits directly to the intended beneficiaries, without getting diverted into the hands of greedy middlemen or terror outfits.
From this analysis were born some foundational steps.
1. Legalize Unique Id - The Government went about securing a legal way to uniquely identify citizens of India in a foolproof manner with Unique Ids, irrespective of where they live and where they move to.
2. Link Unique Bank Account - The Government got the banking machinery to use these Unique Ids to provide for Unique Accounts for every citizen of India in which he/she can receive their intended benefits.
3. Launch of Direct Benefits Roll Out– The Government could now start rolling out benefits directly by linking the benefit with this Unique Acount. One of the first such direct benefit roll outs was the DBTL (Direct Benefit Transfer for LPG) to receive subsidies on Cooking Gas.
These 3 fundamental steps would ensure a secure way for the Government to reach the benefits directly to the right people, exactly, effectively and efficiently.
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Legalizing A Unique Id - AADHAAR
AADHAAR - A Unique Id Many countries of the world have their own Unique Identity mechanisms like the
Social Security Number (SSN) in USA or National Insurance Number called Personal Account Number in UK or Civil Registration Number (CPR) in Denmark or Personnummer in Norway etc. Likewise, India too has rolled out a system whereby a 12-digit unique identity number is assigned to residents of India, based on their biometric and demographic data. This system is called AADHAAR meaning “foundation” as it is designed to form the basis for identifying every citizen of India uniquely.
It was launched in 2009 by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) established under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. This system had been in a pilot mode, since then.
Legalizing AADHAAR as the Unique Id In 2016, the AADHAAR (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) was passed as an Act in the Parliament, to designate the AADHAAR Id and system, as a legal interface between the Government and the people. This legalizing step enables AADHAAR to be used for providing for good governance, efficient, transparent and targeted delivery of subsidies, benefits and services to individuals residing in India through assigning of unique identity numbers.
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AADHAAR is regarded as one of the world's largest biometric ID systems with 1.21 billion holders as of May 2018. It is a complex and ambitious project as it collects more data than the SSN system of the USA and in the New India model, has also been linked to more schemes than the SSN.
Besides the usual issues around usage of biometrics for identification of a diverse set of people, on a mass scale, in a spread out manner, the complexity in running AADHAAR arises out of
making the data accessible in real time from anywhere, 24x7, all over India, making the system fool proof against all forms of identity thefts. By legalizing this AADHAAR Id, India has moved forward from identifying its citizen on the basis of diverse mechanisms with limited scope such as
1. Civil Supplies Ration cards and a Rationing Psyche which is a carryover from the World War era when food and other essentials had to be rationed
2. Passports, when local and time bound Ration cards could not scale up to the needs of a large number of only a select set of globally travelling / relocating citizens
3. Driving licences confined only to those limited few citizens who had vehicles
4. Voter’s Id which confined a citizen to an electorate and was mandated only for those who were eligible to vote
5. Permanent Account Number (PAN) which was assigned to only those who filed Taxes.
These diverse, overlapping modes of identity, which were not linked with one another effectively, were also creating scope for frauds in many cases. Indians literally could have many identities.
Legalizing AADHAAR has paved the way for integrating and linking all these different ids under one umbrella Unique Id, thus reducing scope for frauds.
AADHAAR, now can give the citizens of India a firmly rooted, unique identity with the flexibility for mobility and a sense of safety. It can also give the Government a sense of comfort and security while implementing its schemes.
AADHAAR is in its last leg of legalized, mandated, nationwide rollout.
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A Linked Bank Account - Jan Dhan Yojana
Financial Facilities to the Needy The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 15th August 2014 to help creation of a Unique Bank account for those who were eligible for receiving Direct Benefits from the Government.
India has a massive population of 1.6 Billion people which is only growing further. Many from among this qualify for the Direct Benefits Transfer schemes being designed by the Government to bring them upto globally acceptable norms prevalent in developed nations.
Bringing such a huge population of India under the reach of banking, which is the backbone of the financial structure of a nation is a mammoth task indeed. It had to be taken up on a war footing to ensure a quick roll out of the DBT.
An initiative was called the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana was therefore initiated to focus on bank account opening and achieve a uniquely linked bank account for each and every beneficiary from the Government, right from a child to an aged pensioner .
The task of enabling Jan Dhan Yojana Accounts in Banks for such a large population was addressed by using
the large financial services and postal network, physically spread all across the nation
as well as the
the ubiquitous network of digital communication and mobiles.
A World Record This Yojana saw the government opening 15 million bank accounts, on the launch day.
This is a world record which has been acknowledged even by the Guinness Book. As per Guinness, 18, 096 130 accounts were created in a single week from 23rd August to 29th August 2014.
As of July 2018, more than 31 crore bank accounts have been opened and Rupees equivalent to over Rs.79562.63 crores have been deposited under this scheme. The
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detailed statistics of this scheme are published as a Progress Card on the Government website itself.
PM Jan Dhan Yojana Progress Report As On 18th July 2018 Sourced from www.pmjdy.gov.in website
The opening of these accounts have helped the backward sections of the society to gain direct benefit from various government schemes cutting the middle layers away and reducing scope for pilferage and corruption enroute.
What Is A Yojana? Yojana means a project, a scheme.
It comes from the root word Yuj, meaning to unite. From this root, come words such as Yoke meaning to align or unite a well as Yoga, the union of breath with body and mind.
A Yojana is a union of a need, a resolution, the resources, the steps and its fruits.
A Yojana was also the term used to measure distances in ancient India since a distance is the line that unites the start and the end.
A Yojana is thus a plan born out of an objective to unite the need with the solution.
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What This Yojana Unites? The objective of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana has been to unite and join
the need of the Government to dispense resources to the common masses effectively, and efficiently in a maximized manner with
a solution that can do so without giving scope for the resources to be siphoned off enroute or reduced due to multiple layers of processing and associated charges.
Why This Yojana? 1969 was a landmark year in the economic history of India since all the major banks of India were nationalized and were termed as Scheduled banks as they were brought under the Schedule of the Government of India.
One of the key reasons spouted then, was to take banking from Class Banking (i.e. catering to the upper crust of society) to Mass Banking (i.e making it available for the common masses in urban and rural India).
From 1969 to 2014, about 45 years, while rural branches were started by the nationalized banks, the services provided were still oriented more towards “class banking” philosophy than “mass banking” philosophy. The actual benefits of banking did not reach the masses even after 45 years of independence.
So while banks had reached the villages, villagers had no motivation to enter a bank. They continued to stay outside the financial sector framework. With the Jan Dhan Yojana, not only do they have access to bank services but there is also motivation to enter into the portals of the bank and avail the benefits that have deluded them for long.
This Yojana lays the foundation for every individual of India to gain benefits directly from the Government. It is a receptacle for the direct transfer of benefits.
For instance, in the case of Ayushman Bharat which is poised to become the most ambitious health care scheme of the world, the Jan Dhan Yojana accounts will be helpful to the common man to realize benefits of such schemes.
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In case of emergencies it allows Over Draft for people who actively use the account. It also has an inbuilt life and accident insurance factor.
Savings had been an ethos of India for millennia.
But where will the common man save in present times?
Definitely not in earthen jars like in ancient times since the nature of economy and currency has changed.
Opening these Jan Dhan bank accounts was actually another part of the structural change to reform the economic infrastructure of the nation.
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DBTL - An End to End DBT Finally An end to end, fool proof mechanism to disburse benefits was finally put in place with the rolling out of a Jan Dhan Yojana linked with AADHAAR to make it secure and targeted, thereby cutting the Goliath in the form of corrupt middlemen, who had been cornering the giant’s share for decades.
A decades old malady, afflicting the nation, finally has some relief in sight.
This act by the Government is not only a means for directly reaching benefits to the intended, but is also a corrective action to bring the white economy, back on rails.
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Mann Ki Baat – Government to People Connect Mann Ki Baat is a radio program hosted by Prime Minister via All India Radio, whereby he shares his ideas directly with the people of the country. The Prime Minister through this medium has a reach of around 90% of the Indian population.
A survey conducted to gauge the success of this program in 7 major Indian cities had shown that 66.7% of the population tune into the Prime Minister’s address.
The Prime Minister discusses on varied topics with the people, like Swachh Bharat, Drug Abuse, Exam Stress, Issues concerning Farmers, Digital technology, Preventive Health Care and a host of other subjects.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing the Nation in Mann Ki Baat There have been 44 episodes of Mann Ki Baat so far.
People, are also urged to share their ideas on the Website. From the Mann Ki Baat broadcasts so far, 61000 ideas have been shared on the website and around 1.43 lakh audio recordings have been received.
What make this Mann Ki Baat special is that, for the first time in Indian history, there is a platform for the highest elected leader of India to address the masses directly and for the masses too to communicate with him.
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PART 4 – CLEANING ROAD TO HEALTH
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Health of a Nation
The health of a nation is affected as well as reflected in
the visual state of cleanliness all around
the health of the environment
the health of its soil and water
the health of farming
the health of people
the health of society
the health of economy
the health of minds.
The needs for strengthening the health and image of the nation was therefore addressed by the introduction of a mother of all initiatives called “Swachh Bharat”, meaning a “Clean India” which would focus on
Keeping India clean within homes
Keeping India clean out on the streets
Keeping Indians happy in their minds
Keeping Indians healthy in their body
Keeping Indians educated in their ways
Keeping Indian Money White
Keeping Indian Energy Clean
Keeping Indian Waters Pure
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Keeping Indian Soil Fertile
Keeping Indian Air Fresh
Keeping Indian Law Just and
Keeping Indian Conscience Pure.
Many individual schemes were introduced to work towards each of the above factors.
While each of these schemes seen individually may have seemed independent and disconnected,
they were all working under the overall umbrella of creating a “Swachh Bharat” in a wholesome manner.
they were all enabled and interconnected by the underlying fundamental structural changes and sharing framework created by the Government such as Jan Dhan Yojana, My Gov and Digital India.
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Swachh Bharat Mission
Drive for a Clean India Swachh Bharat Mission / Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was launched by the honourable Prime Minister on 2nd October 2014, to spread awareness on cleanliness.
Abhiyan means a Campaign, a Drive.
This campaign sought to clean India’s streets and public places, both in Urban and Rural India.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi taking part in cleanliness drive
A Record Drive It is the biggest cleanliness drive ever, in the country, involving more than 4041 cities.
A Drive Through History India, for millennia had flourished as a clean, conscientiously sustainable civilization producing predominantly out of villages, trading out of coastal towns, ruling out of centrally secured capital cities and educating out of remotely located University towns.
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With the breakdown of indigenous occupations and industries under British rule and poverty looming large across the country, many Indians had to perforce face a lot of displacement within India as well as migration overseas as labourers.
In the last 200 years, with the introduction of large scale industries in and around cities, India’s traditional way of living also changed from sustainable, small scale, widespread, village centric living to large scale, congested, city centric living.
There was large scale migration of people from villages into cities where opportunities were created in the form of factories and offices.
This led to highly populated cities where large populations started competing for smaller space and resources in the confines of towns and cities. Luxury of a decent home and good amenities have ever since been a problem for many Indians ever since.
Slum based living and psyche took roots in many of the cities and towns due to shortage of spaces and access to amenities beyond capacity.
With the world having started parallel creation of a new category of matter called non- biodegradable wastes, such as rubber, electronic and plastic wastes, which started permeating into India too with increasing globalization and increasing shift in lifestyle, India started facing yet another kind of challenge.
A growing and consuming population, creating more and more waste unmindfully, coupled with an imbalance in number of sanitation facilities and ineffective waste disposal framework changed the appearance of Indian cities.
Villages too fell into unclean ways with breakdown in traditional forms of generating and managing wastes. With subsequent attention being given more to urban areas, sanitation and hygiene in rural India took a big hit.
All this resulted in the appearance and image of India changing from a glorious land to an unclean and unhygienic nation.
Drive for a Clean India The Government which came into power in 2014, under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri.Narendra modi, resolved to free India of its unclean and unhygienic image.
Changing this image needs cleaning at two levels:
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1. inspiring the masses that they should be mindful of being clean, behaving clean, keeping clean and eating clean themselves.
2. infusing the system with newer processes and capabilities so that it is geared to cater to the changing attitude of people towards hygiene.
From this ideology was born Swachh Bharat Mission with 2 major priorities till 2019
Stopping open defecation by building toilets
Stopping littering in public places.
2019 was chosen as the target year since October 2nd, 2019 would be the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, one of India’s greatest proponent of cleanliness.
Mahatma Gandhi had advised and showed by practice that if instead of waiting for somebody to cleanup after one, if each one in a nation kept himself and his surrounding clean, the entire nation will become a clean place.
Particularly, in Rural India, this mission works on improving the levels of cleanliness through Solid and Liquid Waste Management activities and making villages Open Defecation Free (ODF), clean and sanitised.
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Clean Neighbourhood - Stopping Open Defecation One of the main priorities of this campaign was to stop open defecation for which construction of toilets became one of the main focus of the government.
It is sought to make India, “Open Defecation Free” by 2019.
Towards this, the government had set a target of building 81 million toilets in rural India of which 77 million have already been built by July 2018. The most to benefit have been the women community.
Between the years 2014 to 2018, this government has made about 400,000 villages “Open Defecation Free”.
From 38.7% in 2014, the percentage of Open Defecation Free status of India has grown to 87.5% by July 2018.
Stopping Littering Millions of dustbins have also been placed at different public locations and tourist spots across the country as a part of this campaign, so as to reduce littering.
Some of the public areas that have come under focus of this Mission include
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Schools
Anganwadi (Village play schools)
Railway Stations and Bus Stations
Petrol Pumps
and such other public places.
In this light we see that the railway stations and other public places are much cleaner than ever before. The waste disposal system has also been made more sensitive to cater to the different kinds of waste being produced.
We see India’s cities becoming cleaner as awareness has spread among the masses. Many cities have also initiated steps to ban non-recyclable plastics.
Icons To Improve Image Besides these, 100 places across India have been identified as “iconic” due to their heritage, religious and/or cultural significance and this Mission has taken up the task of improving cleanliness conditions at these places to a distinctly higher level, in collaboration with various Public Sector Undertakings.
Ten iconic places chosen to be declared as “Swachh Bharat Icons” in Phase 1, include
1. Ajmer Sharif Dargah, Ajmer, Rajasthan
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2. CST, Mumbai, Maharashtra
3. Golden Temple, Amritsar, Punjab
4. Kamakhya Temple, Guwahati, Assam
5. Manikarnika Ghat, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
6. Meenakshi Temple, Madurai, Tamil Nadu
7. Shri Mata Vaishno Devi, Katra, J&K
8. Shree Jagannath Temple, Puri, Odisha
9. The Taj Mahal, Agra, Uttar Pradesh
10. Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh
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Clearing Slums - Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana
Housing For All Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana is an initiative of the Indian Government, which aims at building 20 million affordable houses by 2022.
This scheme was launched in June 2015.
Why This Yojana? One of the causes for an unclean image of India is the vast number of slums and huts dotting every city and town of this country. While these have mainly come up due to migrants from across various states and rural hinterland having come to large cities and towns in search of opportunities, it is hard to reverse this situation overnight.
Most of these slums and huts typically come up on unauthorized land in the heart of the cities where opportunities are likely to be in plenty
The needs of this category of population
to have a roof over their head and
a feeling of security that they can continue to stay in that city to make their living, will have to be addressed first, if at all the landscape of India has to be changed and the aspirations of this section of people have to be addressed.
Hence, this Yojana to align the nation’s need with their individual need.
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For Urban And Rural There are two aspects to this Yojana,
1. Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana - Urban
2. Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana - Rural
The former caters to the Urban poor, while the latter assists the Rural poor.
Rich or Poor, shelter is a basic need of all, animals and humans.
Avas / Awas means, a residence, house, shelter.
Vas, means to take residence. From Vas, emerge words like Nivas for taking up residence, Amavas for the New Moon, when the moon takes residence on the same side as the sun in the sky. Ama means at home. The moon is residing “at home” with the Sun on Amavas.
This Yojana is all about aligning 2 needs –
1. of providing clean shelter and
2. of clearing slums and improving the image of the nation.
10 Million Homes In 2016, the government identified 2507 cities and towns in 26 states, to build houses for the Urban poor. As of 2018, the government has approved and built 10 million houses for the poor.
Houses Constructed under Awas Yojana
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Interest Subsidy Too Besides providing readymade houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, the government also provides an interest subsidy of 6.5% on housing loans availed by the beneficiaries for a period of 20 years under credit link subsidy scheme from beginning of a loan.
This scheme will ensure that every citizen will have a proper shelter, to live in.
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Clean Economy - Anti Corruption
Steps Taken Against Black Money And Corruption In 2014, when the newly elected Government took charge, one of its main agendas was to
1. Eliminate Corruption
2. Institutionalize Honesty and
3. Enhance Transparency.
In moving towards this goal, the Government decided to focus on the issues of black money which had been plaguing India for long. The first priority of the Government since 2014, when it came to power, therefore, was to take a series of steps to curb black money and corruption.
Voluntary Surrender The government requested the people of the country to surrender voluntarily their black money with a minimal penalty of only 25%. This way the government was able to extract more than Rs. 65,000 crore in black money, held secretly across the country.
Linking Bank Accounts With AADHAAR And PAN Linking Banks accounts with AADHAAR and PAN (Personal Account Number) paved the way for the government to get hold of fake and invisible accounts.
SIT On Black money The government also constituted a SIT (Special Investigation Task Force) on black money, to investigate the black money stashed by off shore bank account holders. It uncovered more than Rs.70,000 crore black money.
Demonetization Demonetization of the higher denominations notes, that typically lend themselves for stashing away, was one of the major steps towards ending black money.
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Action Against Shell Companies The government took action on over two lakh companies suspected of money laundering and closed more than one lakh shell companies for money laundering and dealing in black money.
Prohibition Of Benami Transactions The Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amendment Act, 2016 has also paved the way for a corruption-free India
A Policy And Law To Sell Enemy Property The government has brought in a policy to sell “enemy property” i.e. seizure and selling of the properties of people who have been declared Anti-National and are absconding in the eyes of the law, such as Dawood Ebrahim and Zakir Naik.
Declaring Economic offenders The government has been working to recover assets of those who have been indulging in Financial Fraud.
Towards this, the “Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill 2018” was tabled which targets economic offenders fleeing the country. The bill provides for the confiscation of all assets of such economic offenders.
Thus, those who have indulged in Financial Fraud and have been evading facing the law are declared as “economic offenders” and “fugitives” through a proper court process and their assets in India are confiscated and suitably utilized.
De-structuring Of Economic Assets The Government has enacted a framework that will enable de-structuring of companies, whose economic assets have been locked-up, so that — the rest of the stakeholders and the company do not suffer due to the maladministration of promoters and — such companies can run again in the interest of the industry and larger productivity of the country.
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The de-structuring of economic assets has been paving the way for the release of locked up assets for productive use, so that
1. Productivity increases
2. Bank loans are repaid by the new reformed entities
3. Reduction in NPA (Non Performing Assets) – one of the first such companies being Bhushan Steel
Tightening Of Audit Procedures In Banks The government has also established another institution, i.e. National Financial Reporting Authority (NFRA) to regulate auditors.
The government has mandated tightening up of the audit procedure in banks so that loan rollovers are identified and taken up for recovery.
The goal is to bring to light, the existing huge NPAs that have enjoyed favours of banks and have been evading attention and action by regulatory bodies.
It is also to identify those loans, which are tending towards becoming a NPA at the earliest and initiate process for resolving such matters before they escalate into huge NPAs and frauds.
No Scams The bright part of it all is that, there have been no scams under this government.
All, in all, India since 2014 has progressed towards achieving the creation of an environment, which will make hoarding black money and corruption, almost impossible in future.
The cumulative result of all these efforts, can be seen in a growing CPI (Corruption Perception Index) score as published by Transparency International India (TII).
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Year CPI Score out of 100 (100 is least corrupt) 2012 36
2013 36
2014 38
2015 38
2016 40
2017 40
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Clean Money – Demonetization, War Against Black Money
8th November, 2016 – A Red Letter Day For Black Money On this day, the Government announced a demonetization move, which was a landmark blow to those running a parallel economy. This major step taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, towards curbing black money, shook the whole country and was verily a bolt out of the blue, for those hoarding black money, as it caught them unprepared.
For long, black money has been a part of a wave of plunder that has been lashing through this country, since Independence.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announcing the demonetizing of 500 and 1000 Rupee notes on November 8th, 2016 The Demonetization Process As on Nov 9th, 2018, all Rs.1000 and Rs.500 notes were withdrawn and a new denomination of Rs.2000 was introduced.
The entire process was highly challenging and needed a lot of coordination between the currency printing arm and the distribution arm, since the existing currency notes in force, held with the entire Indian population, in India and overseas, had to be exchanged for the
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new one, that too starting and completing within the same time window, all across the country.
Objective The objective of this demonetization was to make the large amounts of counterfeit Rs.1000 and Rs.500 denomination notes in circulation as well as notes of black money stashed away as invalid currency, so that they would go out of circulation. These denominations were typically being stashed away and used for nefarious activities.
New notes of a new denomination of Rs.2000 and later Rs.500 and also a new denomination of Rs.200 were introduced duly.
With this one sweeping move, practically all the counterfeit money and black-money hoarded in India and outside, in Indian currency form were wiped out by the Government.
In parallel, by introducing reforms in payments, receipts, land registering, tax collection and filing processes, the Government, since 2014 has been consciously working in a concerted manner to ensure that such large sums of moneys cannot be hoarded again without accounting for the same.
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Three Waves of Plunder The plunders of India, can be slotted into 3 waves of looting:
1. Near West Onslaughts – The onslaughts from the Near West such as that of Mohamad of Ghauri, Mohamad of Ghazni, around 1000 CE and that by Nadir Shah around 1700 CE.
2. The Colonial Plunder – The drain of Indian wealth, primarily by the East India Company of the British between 1600 CE to 1947 CE.
3. The Home-Grown Plunder – The looting of Indian money by Indians themselves from 1950 CE till date.
Three Waves of Plunder
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The Third Wave Of Plunder The 3rd and recent wave of plunder, started soon after India’s Independence.
While the previous 2 waves have come and gone, along with the invaders, this 3rd wave, being the handiwork of Indians themselves, has the potential to go on ceaselessly, taking the whole nation downhill, if left unchecked.
While the previous 2 waves of plunder are large, done with and the wealth lost forever mingled in world economy of the last millennium, in stark contrast, the monies of the 3rd wave of plunder are not lost.
The monies of the 3rd wave of plunder are equally large or probably even larger and more importantly, can be quantified, identified, repatriated and specifically channelized for the rejuvenation of the country as a whole.
There are many ways to curb this wave of plunder and to bring back the hoarded black money into mainstream economy but each is a highly involved, long drawn process.
India’s Age Old 4 Prong Approach For Complying The age old Indian ethos speaks of a 4 step approach to correct anyone –
1. Sama (Patience) – balanced education about good and bad,
2. Dhana (Gift) – incentivizing good behaviour,
3. Bhedha (Discrimination) – discrimination to kindle the conscience on bad behaviour,
4. Dhanda (Punishing Stick) – punishing the persisting bad behavior to evoke conformance.
At a national level with respect to black money, many governments had brought in various schemes during their times, to enable the recovery of black money circulating at the national level, using voluntary disclosure schemes.
But these had not stayed successful for very long.
Now that the above three steps had failed, the government under the bold leadership of Prime Minister Shri. Narendra Modi, decided to adopt the 4th one, Dhanda, in 2016.
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The stick, Dhanda approach, is always the last, after all other methods have been tried out and have not yielded desired results. When applied in this order, the modus operandi has not failed. It has been a time tested approach with relation to human nature.
This is why, kings, who are often embodiments of dispensation of justice and punishments are seen holding a Dhanda in their hand. This is how a Dhanda, a rod, a sceptre has come to be associated with ruling.
A Royal Sceptre
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Carrot and Stick Approach The step of the government was not all about Dhanda though. It was a Carrot and Stick approach.
In an effort to entice the evader to bring back his monies stashed away in the Tax Havens and not lose it completely, economic amnesty was also granted to those who wanted to disclose and bring back these monies in large quantities.
The Silent Operation 86% of the overall money in circulation was de-monetized in a single stroke. Such a task, had never before been attempted in any economy of the world. It had no precedence.
No economist had any economic model for such an act. This was such a bold surgical strike on black moneys. From its whole planning, to the moment of announcement by the Prime Minister, nobody outside the closely working team seemed to have had a whiff of what was to come.
The execution committee, monitored the economic situation on a daily basis for the 1st couple of weeks and were forthcoming in giving daily updates to the people and reassuring
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them that they were constantly on the ball, monitoring the developments and taking required steps / measures quickly to ease the situation as and when needed.
The re-monetization was quick and done within a quarter.
Even though the public did face some hardships during the changeover phase, it was by and large,
the largest economic cleanup operation of the world, across the largest population, in a largely peaceful manner. The entire economic surgical strike had been silent, sudden and successful.
New Lease On A Long Leash Despite all these steps, soon after the De-monetization itself, money was found to be stashed again in some pockets, all poised to restart the parallel economy once again.
This may seem to have defeated the entire exercise.
However, what one misses out in all this, is the quiet fact that the de-monetization exercise led to many black money hoarders depositing as much cash as they could into the banks to make as much of it, white money as possible. Such deposits, where the amount deposited far exceeded the known or regular sources of income, which number close to 15 lakhs have been tagged by the Government for follow up when needed.
Thus the Government does hold the leash, except that it seems to have given it a long rope for now. The leash can be tightened any time and the errant lot can be hauled in at any time desired.
Success of Steps Taken The effects of the De-monetization exercise and the tightening measures applied could only be seen in 2018 from the locational banking statistics (LBS) compiled by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), a global central banking body.
These statistics reflect the actual cross border transactions done by individual and corporate account holders towards loans and deposits.
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As per the data compiled by BIS, the ‘amount outstanding' towards non-bank loans and deposits of Indians in Switzerland-based banks shows a steep downward trend as follows. The word “non-Bank” denotes those transactions which are not part of regular interbank transfers or transfers between branches of Swiss banks and other fiduciary transactions. Meaning these are transactions of private individuals and corporates.
Liabilities from India to Switzerland Towards Non-bank loans and deposits of Indians in Switzerland-based banks Compiled by Bank of International Settlements (BIS) Using Locational Banking Statistics (LBS) in Millions of US Dollars Year Amount 2013 2648 2014 2234 2015 1447 2016 800 2017 524 % Drop from 2013 to 2017 80.2% % Drop from 2016 to 2017 34.5%
These statistics reflect a massive downward trend of 80.2%, in amounts held as deposits in Swiss banks from 2013 to 2017. The plugs to prevent leaks out of India seem to have been effective in plugging.
This goes to reiterate the success of the steps being taken to curb black money as well as outflow of such money from India.
Swiss Banks – A Tax Haven, No More Further more, Switzerland in 2018, as a global wealth management hub reiterated
its commitment to the integrity of the global financial system,
its application of international transparency standards and
its active support to India in India’s fight against tax fraud and evasion.
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Above all, the Automatic Exchange of Information in Tax Matters between Switzerland and India entered into force on 1st January 2018.
Hence wef January 2018, the detailed financial information on all Indian residents that have an account maintained by a Swiss financial institution, as in 2018, will be provided for the first time to the Indian tax authorities in September 2019 and on a yearly basis thereafter.
The information shared will also include accounts that would be closed during 2018.
Thus post 2018, all accounts held by Indians in Swiss Banks and the moneys held therein, will come into visibility of the Indian Government and will no longer be liable to be termed as “Black Money”.
The era of Indian Black Money in Swiss Banks will be over post 2018, after which all these moneys will become white.
It is a major step for India in the white and right direction!
A People’s Victory All in all, the De-monetization exercise was a courageous initiative and should be valued by all, even though it did lead to a few inconveniences and a few devaluations.
The people of this country, largely, out of a desperation to see “rightness” prevail, acted tolerantly in this exercise, bearing the trials and tribulations patiently, overlooking the hitches and snags sagely, to be in unison with the government in its effort to cleanse the nation of this evil.
Though a Government initiative, it was a people’s victory.
The nation as a “New India” is waking up to see things as a whole and make a collective decision on how to ensure that
the prosperity generated in the country by the people,
stays within the country for the benefit of people
under the watchful eyes of the people.
For, democracy is all about governance of the people, by the people, for the people.
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Healthy Gender Ratio – Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao
Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) which means “Save Girls, Educate Girls” is a social campaign started by the Government of India to majorly address the issue of declining child sex ratio.
Launched on 22 January 2015, BBBP is a joint initiative run by
the Ministry of Women and Child Development,
the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and
the Ministry of Human Resource Development.
BBBP’s aims are
to stop the discrimination of the girl child and practice of sex determination test
to ensure survival and protection of girls and
to ensure the participation of girls in education and other areas
The campaign works towards raising awareness on welfare services intended for young Indian girls to prevent and eradicate female foeticide.
One of the fundamental causes for female foeticide and infanticide of girl children in India has been the malaise called the dowry system. However, since the cleansing of this deeprooted ill in society is a very involved and time consuming exercise, one of the measures taken to quickly arrest such acts of foeticide and infanticide has been the Sukanya Sammriddhi Yojana (SSY).
Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana (SSY) Sukanya means a young girl, Samriddhi is prosperity and Yojana denotes a scheme.
SSY or “Girl Child Prosperity Scheme”, in line with the objectives of the BBBP, aims at tackling the major problem associated with having a girl child i.e. her education and her marriage.
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SSY is a Government of India backed saving scheme targeted at the parents of girl children. The scheme encourages parents to build a fund for the future education and marriage expenses for their female child.
Sukanya Samriddhi Accounts can be opened at any India Post office or branch of authorised commercial banks, anytime between the birth of a girl child and the time she attains 10 years of age by the parent/guardian. Only one account is allowed per child.
Deposits in the account can be made by the parent/guardian till the completion of 15 years, from the date of the opening of the account. The girl can operate her account after she reaches the age of 10.
50% withdrawal of the fund is allowed when the girl reaches the age of 18, for higher education purposes. The account reaches maturity after a time period of 21 years from the date of opening it.
To make it further attractive to the parents of girl children these accounts come with various tax benefits.
The Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao programme implemented has been the driving force behind the rise in literacy rates among girls in India and smoothed out the path for women-led development.
History of Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, thought it fit to address the issue at the grassroot level itself. He made use of his 13 years’ experience as the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014, to implement his scheme.
In Gujarat, when Shri Modi was the Chief Minister, he brought in the Beti Bachao Scheme. Even as the Chief Minister of Gujarat, he, along with cabinet ministers across portfolios and IAS officers, used to personally camp in all the districts across Gujarat when schools opened for the new academic year in mid-June.
A Chief Minister personally enrolling girl children In the middle of June, when the new academic year starts, it is peak summer in Gujarat, as the Sun is then, overhead at the Tropic of Cancer, which Cancer passes through Gujarat. Even so, unmindful of physical discomfort, he used to get engaged personally, in implementing this scheme at the grass root level.
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Despite the extreme heat in Gujarat-Saurashtra-Kutch region reaching more than 42 Deg Centigrade, Modi and his team of ministers and bureaucrats, used to physically escort each girl child and enroll her in a government school.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacting with Girl Students This program was sustained for 13 years by Shri Narendra Modi, as a Chief Minister, inorder to ensure that all the girl children in his state started going to school. This program became the genesis for the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao National Scheme.
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Healthy Gender Balance – Women Empowerment Women empowerment is a necessary prerequisite of any society, and the Government has reiterated this simple fact by employing women in positions of power.
Their emphasis on women entrepreneurship and financial inclusion for them has led to social progress in the society by challenging the stereotypes and virtues associated with women.
Towards this, various schemes have been initiated for girl children and women.
Mahila E-Haat This is a direct online marketing platform launched by the Ministry of Women and Child Development to support women entrepreneurs, Self Helf Groups (SHGs) and Non- Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to showcase products made and services rendered by them. This online platform has been made possible due to the 'Digital India' initiative.
STEP This scheme, Support to Training and Employment Programme for Women (STEP) aims
to provide skills that give employability to women and
to provide competencies and skill that enable women to become self-employed/ entrepreneurs.
Sectors include Agriculture, Horticulture, Food Processing, Handlooms, Tailoring, Stitching, Embroidery, Zari etc, Handicrafts, Computer & IT enable services along with soft skills and skills for the workplace such as spoken English, Gems & Jewellery, Travel & Tourism, Hospitality, etc.
Nari Shakti Puruskars The Nari Shakti Puruskars are national level awards that recognize the efforts made by women and institutions in rendering distinguished services for the cause of women, especially vulnerable and marginalized women.
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Equal Gender Justice – Marriage Rights
Abolition of Triple Talaq and Nikah Halala for Muslim Women As a step towards ensuring gender justice and equality, the Government has actively taken up the issue of Triple Talaq i.e Talaq-e-Biddat or instant talaq and Nikah Halala, by introducing the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights of Marriage) Bill, 2017 in Parliament.
This bill is meant to ensure that
Muslim women cannot be divorced instantly by the husband by uttering the word Talaq, repeatedly 3 times either verbally or by writing or other electronic means, as has been practiced in India under the custom “Talaq-e-Biddat”
Divorced Muslim women are not forced to go through a marriage with another man, consummate it and obtain divorce in it, in case she has to remarry her earlier husband, a practice called “Nikah Halala”.
Muslim women can seek subsistence allowance and custody of her minor children by moving the court in case of a divorce.
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Safe Society – Protection of Women and Children
One Stop Centre Scheme This is a service which was started on 1st April 2015 with the 'Nirbhaya' fund. The One Stop Centres are established at various locations in India for providing shelter, police desk, legal, medical and counselling services to victims of violence under one roof integrated with a 24 hour Helpline with a toll free number - 181.
Working Women Hostels The objective of the scheme is to promote availability of safe and conveniently located accommodation for working women, with day care facility for their children, wherever possible, in urban, semi urban or even rural areas, where employment opportunity for women exist.
For Their Safety Several other steps towards ensuring a girl child / woman’s safety include
Bill for trafficking
bringing in death penalty for sexual crimes against girls,
reducing the age of juveniles from 18-16 years for heinous crime
Comprehensive Schemes for Prevention of trafficking and Rescue, Rehabilitation and Re-integration of Victims of Trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation
Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013 has been made operational with a facility started for filing online complaints with the Ministry under this Act
Panic button in mobile phones for launching across India
Railway Childline has been started in 60 railway stations and has helped rescue thousands of children from being trafficked.
POCSO e-Box to let children file complaints of sexual abuse with anonymity so that they can be reached out to with necessary help.
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Establishment of a state-of-the-art forensic facility to help investigate cases of sexual crimes.
An inter-ministerial mechanism to deal with problems of women involved in troubled NRI marriages put in place.
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Healthy Society - Wellbeing Of Women and Children
Various new measures have been introduced across various schemes and various ministries to ensure the wellbeing of women and children in India. Some of the salient ones include:
Swachh Bharat Mission has also led to the construction of toilets all over the country for all, especially the women to meet their sanitation requirements.
POSHAN Abhiyaan, a scheme for serving nutritional food has been introduced in all the high-burden districts of the country with a view to eliminate malnutrition.
Real time monitoring of the condition of children and pregnant and lactating women is being done in over one lakh Anganwadis which will be extended to all Anganwadis in the current year.
Various programs and policies have also been enacted to secure the well-being of expectant mothers such as increase of maternity leave period from 3 months to 6 months.
A large facility for rehabilitating widows and victims of violence directed at women
Establishment of a national mechanism to deal with cases of children involved in disturbed transnational marriages.
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Clean Homes – Pollution Free Cooking Facility
Ujjwala India is home to more than 24 Crore households out of which about 10 Crore households are still deprived of LPG as cooking fuel and have to rely on firewood, coal, dung – cakes etc. as primary source of cooking. The smoke from burning such fuels causes alarming household pollution and adversely affects the health of Women and children causing several respiratory diseases/ disorders.
As per a WHO report, smoke inhaled by women from unclean fuel is equivalent to burning 400 cigarettes in an hour. In addition, women and children have to go through the drudgery of collecting firewood.
Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) aims to safeguard the health of women & children by providing them with a clean cooking fuel – LPG, so that they don’t have to compromise their health in smoky kitchens or wander in unsafe areas collecting firewood.
PMUY was launched by Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on May 1st, 2016 in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh.
Under this scheme, 5 Cr LPG connections would be provided to BPL (Below Poverty Line) families with a support of Rs.1600 per connection between 2016 and 2019. Ensuring women’s empowerment, especially in rural India, the connections would be issued in the name of women of the households. Rs. 8000 Cr. has been allocated towards the implementation of the scheme. Identification of the BPL families will be done through Socio Economic Caste Census Data.
PMUY is likely to result in an additional employment of around 1 Lakh and provide business opportunity of at least Rs. 10,000 Cr. to the Indian Industry as well as provide a great boost to the ‘Make in India’ campaign since all the manufacturers of cylinders, gas stoves, regulators, and gas hose are domestic.
PMUY puts women at the centre of India’s household energy policy. With the connections being in women’s name and the subsidy being transferred to their bank accounts, PMUY makes an effort to usher in a balance of power within the household unit. In this connect, the accounts opened through Jan Dhan Yojana come in handy to transfer the subsidies directly into their account.
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Accessible Medicare - Janaushadi
Making Medicare Affordable Access to economic but quality medicare and healthcare is one of the primary concerns of every common man. With ever increasing number of infectitious diseases, lifestyle diseases, occupational hazards, accident prone situations as well as congenital defects, the burden of medicare on the common man has only been growing.
While the world is rapidly developing in terms of R&D, cures and remedies for overcoming these health challenges, the costs of access to these facilities or medicines continue to keep them far away from the reaches of the common man.
Access to affordable Medicare proves to be difficult.
To ensure that every citizen can gain access to quality but affordable medicare, a citizen centric medicine distribution scheme called Pradhan Mantri Bharatiya Janaushadi Pariyojana was rolled out in 2015, by the Bureau of Pharma PSUs of India, Under the Department of Pharmaceuticals in the Government.
A Wide Margin One of the biggest gaps in modern India is the huge difference between the manufacturing cost of a branded drug and its Maximum Retail Price. This makes the Pharma industry one of the most profitable industries but it also makes the Medicine very expensive for the underprivileged.
This also increases the gap between availability of medicine versus actual accessibility of the same, due to price mainly.
The Big, Generic Step Hence, various pharmaceutical companies have been brought together to contribute drugs in their generic form, without branding and other frills, at a low cost to Janaushadi from where it is distributed through the various states and registered hospitals, medical centres and medical stores across India at a low price.
The services include making available 700 Generic drugs, 154 Surgicals and Consumables and over 3600 Jan Aushadi stores all over India to cater to the needs of the underprivileged for low cost medicine.
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Still in its early stages, with
Accessibility,
Acceptability,
Affordability as its Triple A goals, Janaushadi is growing from strength to strength, to strengthen underprivileged India’s ability to also gain access to quality medicines.
It is creating a silent revolution in achieving health security for all - one of the goals of the Transformation of India into a New India where quality and affordable healthcare is available to all citizens.
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Healthy Farming – Soil Health Cards
Health of The Land Land, soil is one of the main assets of a traditionally agrarian nation,
which India has been for millennia and
which India is ideally suited for, even now, with
o vast tracts of flat and cultivable lands,
o year round sunlight,
o annual predictable monsoon,
o a huge, youthful, deployable workforce as well as
o good technology for maximizing returns from agri-based industries.
Need Of A Helping Hand Among the above factors, while India has vast tracts of flat and cultivable land, the health and productivity of these lands are in question today due to
forced exploitation of these lands during British reign, against sustainable norms, for maximizing crops and gains
indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to boost productivity
repercussion of ground water shortage created artificially due to failure in water harnessing practices
and many other such man made causes.
These lands therefore need caring for, to become fertile and productive again.
The farmers need advice on how best to use their land and what will grow best in that land.
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Soil Health Cards Given this need, Soil Health Card Scheme was started by this government in 2015 to help the farmers maximize the productivity of their land by nurturing it in a suitable manner.
Under this scheme, soil cards are issued to farmers, giving them appropriate crop based information on the nutrients and fertilizers required in specific individual farms.
This helps the farmers in understanding the necessary inputs required by their farms, thereby improving their farms’ productivity.
The soil samples are tested in various soil testing labs in the country.
The experts then analyse the positive and negative aspects of the soil and suggest measures to deal with them. Their suggestions are printed in the Soil cards and provided to the farmers.
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In the 4 years from 2014 to 2018, 144, 730, 838 Soil Cards have been issued by the government to farmers across the country.
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Happy Farming – A Formula for Profitability
A Crying Need However much a farmer cares for his land and makes it productive, however much Mother Nature bestows rain and shine in the land, however much the farmer and his community invest in labour and however much the crops yield harvest, if the farmer does not benefit from the sale of the crops, everything goes to nought for him.
Farming as an occupation itself loses its image and attraction, ending up tagged as a loss making occupation.
The end result is that the nation as a whole loses in terms of food security, higher inflation, lower economic ranking and the likes.
Hence, while steps such as Soil Health Scheme were introduced, it was even more important to ensure that the farmer gets the due value for the crops and makes the maximum gain in the whole chain of farm to kitchen.
A Thanking Prayer In olden days, India was driven by an ethos of thanking the farmer and his ilk, as well as, all that form the food chain - humans and animals, including insects and germs as well as forces of Nature, for producing and delivering all that one consumes as food at the end.
This ethos found reflection in the phrase
“Annadatta Sukhi Bhava”,
meaning
“May the provider of this food be comfortable and happy”.
But, over time, post British rule, when farming came to be viewed as a money making industry rather than a food provider, all hands came forward to devise ways and means to maximize gains from a food distribution chain.
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The philosophy became one of making as high profits as possible by keeping
MRP (Maximum Retail Price), the price at which something is sold in retail, as high as possible and
MSP (Minimum Support Price), the price at which it is procured from the producer, as low as possible.
This would give enough cushion to keep pushing the product far, along the chain, through many hands.
The price of the food reaching the end consumer thus went up but the farmer continued to get the same paltry sum for his produce. All the gains went to the various and numerous layers in the middle, both legally and corruptly.
On the one hand, farmers were being made to buy a lot of inputs to cultivate according to hitherto ways unfamiliar to them.
On the other hand they were not getting paid enough for all that they had spent in terms of money and effort to produce the crop.
With additional vagaries of natural forces and other human induced situations leading to bumpers and failed crops after all this, many farmers were running into debts and farming was ceasing to become a practiced or a chosen occupation.
MSP is price fixed by Government of India to protect the producer – the farmers, in case the market price for the commodity falls below the cost price due to bumper production and glut in the market.
Bringing Back The Smile Keeping this in mind and inorder to bring back smile, happiness and comfort in the lives of the farming community, the Annadaata, the Government, in July 2018, took the decision to revise the Minimum Support Price (MSP) that a farmer needs to receive for his crop.
This increase has come after 33 years of consistent demands raised by the farming community. It took so long so see resolution for, such a revision, while on one hand, affects the farming community positively, on the other hand, was not likely to sit well with the trading community.
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Despite the repercussions, keeping in mind the need to safeguard the interests of the farmers and build food security for the nation, the Government went ahead and increased the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for 14 Kharif crops in July 2018, such that farmers growing these crops would have an assured profit margin of atleast 50%.
This step has direct benefit for farmers and agricultural production.
A Formula For Farmers However, to ensure that the farmer does not have to go through such troubles again when inflation takes his production costs up, the Government went ahead and declared the MSP as a formula instead of a fixed amount.
MSP was fixed as 50% over and above the cost of production.
For example, if the agricultural production cost is 250,
Then the MSP will be, MSP = 250 + 50 % of 250, i.e 250 +125 = 375.
This formula aims to help farmers gain respect for what they are doing.
Benefits of Increasing MSP A good support price will encourage the farmers to take more risks. This will increase Kharif Crop sowing area. The increase in production, will naturally increase exports and reduce imports. This will boost the Indian economy and at the same time bring economic stability to the farmers.
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Healthy Food – Careful Choice
Why MSP for Kharif? Why did the Government choose Kharif crops for fixing the MSP?
Kharif and Rabi For understanding the implication of this decision, one has to first know the difference between the 2 main kind of crops of India – the Kharif and the Rabi.
The cropping season of Kharif crops starts with the onset of monsoon and ends when the rainy season is over.
On the other hand, Rabi crops are grown in winter, i.e. sown when monsoon ends and harvested before the advent of the summer season.
Kharif Crops Rabi Crops
Paddy, maize, bajra, jowar, ragi, pigeon pea, Wheat, barley, oat, peas, chickpea, alfalfa, green gram, black gram, soybean, guar, cow lucerne, mustard, sunflower, linseed, pea, groundnut, castor, cotton, sugarcane, sesame, cumin, coriander, fenugreek, fennel, turmeric, chilly, bitter gourd, bottle gourd, potato, tomato, onion, garlic, amaranth, sponge gourd, brinjal, okra and tomato spinach, beet, cabbage and cauliflower
Kharif Vs Rabi In that, the Rabi crops are grown during a time window when climatic conditions are relatively pleasant and natural risks are minimal. Natural water bodies too would be full post monsoon.
On the other hand, Kharif crops are grown during the monsoon. They are dependant on monsoon rains. In that, if rains fail, so do the crops. At the same time, excess rains and floods can also wash away the crops. Good rains can cause bumper crops. Kharif crops thus are innately associated with a higher risk.
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The Relief Hence as a form of insurance to the farmer and to enable him to take the risk and go ahead and plant kharif crops, this hike of 50% in MSP has been rolled out by the Government.
It is the vision that New India will also abound in more Kharif crops such as
Increase in 2018- Trend 2017-18 2018-19 2018-19 MSP from 2019 Commodity Season Season Season 2017-2018 Return MSP Cost MSP Season over cost Rs per Rs per Rs per Absolute Indicative, In % In % quintal quintal quintal (Rs) not to scale Bajra 1425 990 1950 525 36.84 96.97 Arhar(Tur) 5450 3432 5675 225 4.13 65.36 Urad 5400 3438 5600 200 3.70 62.89 Maize 1425 1131 1700 275 19.30 50.31 Paddy (Common) 1550 1166 1750 200 12.90 50.09 Jowar (Hybrid) 1700 1619 2430 730 42.94 50.09 Ragi 1900 1931 2897 997 52.47 50.01 Cotton (Medium Staple) 4020 3433 5150 1130 28.11 50.01 Sunflower Seed 4100 3592 5388 1288 31.42 50.01 Soyabean 3050 2266 3399 349 11.44 50.01 Sesamum 5300 4166 6249 949 17.91 50.01 Nigerseed 4050 3918 5877 1827 45.11 50.01 Moong 5575 4650 6975 1400 25.11 50.00 Groundnut 4450 3260 4890 440 9.89 50.00
The Trend From the pattern of % returns, one can see that core millets such as Bajra and pulses such as Tur Dal have got maximum % returns.
This should encourage farmers to produce more millets which require lesser water instead of Paddy which is a water guzzler, at least until India can repair and rejuvenate its traditional water harnessing infrastructure to harness and divert enough water for these water intensive crops.
A Health Driven Decision Further, with recent medical surveys glorifying the health benefits of millets, which indeed had been the staple diet of India for millennia, there is a rising demand for millets.
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This strategy will give the farmers the opportunity to gain more profits and the nation, the opportunity to gain more heath.
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Wholesome Education – Opening Mind, Open For All
Progressive Education
Every few years, as the collective knowledge of the world develops, it is necessary to keep revising the education content to keep producing next generations who can leverage the same to make mankind advance with time.
Every few years, as the collective technology of the world develops and changes the ways of the world, it is important to review and revise the methods being used to deliver the content inorder to make education relevant, purposeful and enjoyable.
Progress of Education India is a nation with a legacy of a long history and vast reservoir of indigenous knowledge, skills, industries and culture. Sadly however, this knowledgebase has been missing receiving the due attention, due acknowledgement and due articulation even in the post- colonial, India.
How can a nation claim to have transformed itself into a Developed, confident and powerful nation if it is unsure of its past, ashamed of it and avoids acknowledging it? More so, when that past was a prosperous and glorious one at that!
How can a Developed nation stand firm when not anchored by its roots?
A “Developed” India in the future, should have learnt about its past, be proud of it and should be ingenious enough to pick out what had worked well in the past, for its future.
The focus of New India, besides ensuring education for all and improving literacy across India, will be to continually keep reforming Indian education systems and facilities
to be on par with the world in educational content, facilities and pedagogy
to be relevant to the history, ecology, environment and geopolitics of India
to put Indians at an advantage by giving them the ability to dip into ancient India’s vast reservoir of knowledge, wisdom, culture and experience too, for creating exclusive opportunities for themselves and for India, to lead the world with its ways.
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The Requisites But it is like the case of the tank and the tap. Even if there is a water tank overhead, full of water and a tap inside the house, unless the plumbing is done and pipes laid from the tank to the tap, one cannot get the water to flow through the taps.
Likewise, even though India has a vast reservoir of knowledge – both modern and ancient and a vast number of educational institutions and students waiting to lap it all up, unless the proper framework is created and policies are in place
to make revised education content available
to get enough number of teachers reoriented / retrained in it
to create enough amount of appropriately equipped teaching facilities and
to manufacture enough number of suitable opportunities to apply the education received in a wholeseome manner, the Government cannot sustain a good flow of fresh minds out of the system.
A very involved and complex task indeed and the emerging New India is awaiting roll out of such a new education policy to reap the benefits that will be showered on it, once set in flow.
In the interim, steps have been taken within the ambit of the current system to better the quality, image and access to education across the 3 levels of education –
1. School Education, 2. Higher Education and 3. Self-Education. Scholarships for Minorities To make education available for all, three scholarship schemes have been introduced.
1. Pre-Matric Scholarship (class I to X), 2. Post-Matric Scholarship (Class XI to Ph.D) and 3. Merit-cum-Means-based Scholarship (for professional and technical courses at under-graduate and post-graduate levels)
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These scholarships have been introduced by the Government for students who belong to the six notified minority communities: Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain and Parsi.
These schemes have been instituted for education empowerment of minority community students all over the country including girls.
The total outlay for the schemes can benefit about 70 lakh students annually. For instance, the outlay for the period 2019-20 was set as Rs.5333.82 crores.
As many as 2.52 crore minority students, with 50% of them being girls, have availed scholarships and benefited through this scheme so far.
All the scholarship schemes are implemented through the National Scholarship Portal (NSP) and the disbursement of scholarships are made under the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mode, which eliminates duplication and leakage.
The NSP portal together with the DBT payout have increased promptness, transparency and efficiency of the entire process making it easier for students to apply for and avail such educational benefits from the Government directly.
Improving School Education
Improving Infrastructure and Quality of Input and Output The major steps of the Government towards improvement of schools and the education being offered, focussed on improvements in
1. School Quality - Construction of toilets in all government Schools to ensure a clean environment for children in compliance with the Swachh Bharat Mission.
2. Education Quality - Conduct of the first National Achievement Survey (NAS), the Government’s first and India’s largest sample survey of learning outcomes for Classes III, V and VIII.
3. Student Quality – Making Board examinations for Class X in CBSE compulsory again.
4. Teacher Quality – Setting a deadline of March 2020, to ensure all teachers get qualified by March 2020.
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Increased Access to Education Material To keep the cost of education low and to remove barriers in the path of education reaching everyone, irrespective of economic means or location, the government has made the books for CBSE schools available online for free.
Standardization of School Education – For Quality The Government is currently working on a draft legislation to set up a Higher Education Regulatory Council, which will eventually subsume all existing regulatory authorities such as UGC, AICTE and NCTE.
Likewise a single testing agency called The National Testing Agency (NTA) is being setup. The NTA is envisioned as a single testing agency that will conduct all entrance exams to higher education.
This will ensure common standard across all boards of School education, from all regions, before children started moving across the nation or beyond borders for higher education.
This will make higher education open to all based on their talent and merit.
It will bring in equitability and quality among those who go in for higher education.
Increasing Literacy and Progress - Free and Compulsory Education Steps have been taken to ensure that all children get the opportunity to become well and truly educated.
Students who fail in Classes V and VIII, will be given a chance to reappear within a few weeks of the results. This ensures that students get a second chance to improve their scores without having to lose a year.
Those who fail at the second attempt too, will not be promoted to the next class but made to repeat the same class so that they can pick up enough to clear at the end of the second year.
With the launch of the online platform for Governance, the Government has also rolled out a mechanism to monitor performance of states under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan to ensure maximum literacy in each state.
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Higher Autonomy In Higher Education
Liberating High Performers In a move to liberate the performing higher educational institution from hindering regulations, the Government has taken steps to grant more autonomy to institutions of higher education that are benchmarks by themselves.
For instance, a law has been put in place that will give the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) unprecedented levels of academic and administrative freedom.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) has also passed a new regulation that grants different grades of autonomy to all institutions of higher learning, based on their performance.
These steps are aimed at liberating the performers from regulatory control which being generic, could prove to be constraining in bringing out exceptional and high performers.
World Class Status Further, in order to improve the international image of higher education in India, the Government has identified 20 institutions (10 public and 10 private), that it will assist, in making it, into the global top-100 list. These ‘Institutions of Eminence’ are proposed to have greater autonomy compared to other higher education institutions. The 10 public institutions will also receive Rs 1,000 crore each, from the ministry to improve their worldwide ranking.
Increased Access to Quality Higher Education Facilities The government has started seven new IIMs, six new IITs and two new IISERs.
It has also set up the Higher Education Funding Agency for lending money to institutions for infrastructure development.
Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship (PMRF) for Promoting Research To attract more engineering graduates to pursue MTech or PhD programmes and boost research, meritorious science and technology graduates from any university in the country will now be able to apply for the Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship, PMRF, a Centre- sponsored special fellowship.
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The Fellowship includes generous monthly grants of over Rs.70000 as well as Rs.2 lakh every year for a period of 5 years to cover their academic contingency expenses and “for foreign/national travel expenses” connected with their research.
The performance of the student receiving this Fellowship is rigorously reviewed every year before the fellowship for the next year is approved.
The scheme thus aims at producing more quality academicians and qualified teachers to meet the shortage of faculty members being faced by the higher educational institutes of India.
Self-Education for All Through SWAYAM
Beyond Physical Boundaries The ministry made some strides in the direction of technology-enabled learning with launch of SWAYAM, which offers free online courses by teachers of reputable institutions.
With launch of SWAYAM, the Government has taken education out of the confines of schools and institutes of higher learning and out of the limits of prescribed ages.
SWAYAM is a programme initiated by Government of India and designed to achieve the three cardinal principles of Education Policy viz.,
access, equity and quality. SWAYAM seeks to bridge the digital divide for students who have hitherto remained untouched by the digital revolution and have not been able to join the mainstream of the knowledge economy.
This is done through an indigenous developed IT platform that facilitates hosting of all the courses, taught in classrooms from 9th class till post-graduation to be accessed by anyone, anywhere at any time.
Breaking Quality Barriers The objective of this effort is to take the best teaching learning resources to all, including the most disadvantaged.
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All the courses are interactive, prepared by the best teachers in the country and are available, free of cost to the residents in India. More than 1,000 specially chosen faculty and teachers from across the Country have participated in preparing these courses.
The courses hosted on SWAYAM are in 4 quadrants –
1. video lecture, 2. specially prepared reading material that can be downloaded/printed 3. self-assessment tests through tests and quizzes and 4. an online discussion forum for clearing the doubts.
Steps have been taken to enrich the learning experience by using audio-video and multi- media and state of the art pedagogy / technology. In order to ensure best quality content are produced and delivered, nine National Coordinators have been appointed, namely
AICTE for self-paced courses, NPTEL for engineering, UGC for post-graduation education, CEC for under-graduate education, NCERT & NIOS for school education, IGNOU for out of the school students and IIMB for management studies.
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Building Credentials Courses delivered through SWAYAM are available free of cost to the learners, however students wanting certifications shall be registered and shall be offered a certificate on successful completion of the course, with a little fee.
At the end of each course, there will be an assessment of the student through proctored examination and the marks/grades secured in this exam could be transferred to the academic record of the students.
UGC has already issued the UGC (Credit Framework for online learning courses through SWAYAM) Regulation 2016 which advises the Universities to identify courses where credits can be transferred on to the academic record of the students for courses done on SWAYAM.
Self-Study To Self-Sufficiency Thus New India is marching towards removing the barrier for complete education and making education a self-paced, self-motivated, self-learning activity to produce self- confident and self-made individuals.
Such a system of educating oneself in India, is known as Swadhyaya – meaning self- learning, self-study – from swa for self and adhyaya for lesson. It is the first step towards becoming a self-realized individual.
A population of self-studied, self-made, self-confident, self-realized individuals will naturally go on to create a self-sufficient nation.
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Efficient Energy – EESL
Efficient Energy Production, Efficient Energy Utilization Energy is the main input for Productivity.
One way to increase productivity is to provide more energy.
One way to create more energy is to save on already produced energy.
One way to save on already produced energy is to use the consumed energy efficiently.
So, while production of electricity is ramped up to ensure that all citizens gain access to electricity, steps are also needed to ensure that the citizens consume the produced electricity in an efficient manner.
That is, steps are needed to help the people use lesser energy to obtain same or more output, which can result in energy savings.
Or conversely, produce more output from the same or lesser quantum of energy procured from the Government, which can result in productivity gains.
As an innovative and participative step to bring about such a transformation in energy efficiency, a Joint Venture of various Public Sector Units called Electricity Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) was created under the Ministry of Power.
EESL’s objective is help the consumers of power get more achieved with the same energy consumption.
EESL has since, been creating new standards in the areas of availability and utilization of Power in India. It has also been helping in becoming the standard for assessing the large- scale transformation of the nation, since availability of power forms one of the critical benchmarks for a developed nation.
Most importantly, EESL has been able to achieve all this through collaboration by creating incentives for all stakeholders.
Municipal Energy Efficiency Programme (MEEP) Home to one of the world’s biggest municipal systems, India is plagued by high operating expenses in the supply of water. 40% to 60 % of energy costs arise only from supplying
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water and an estimated 4800 million units in electricity are wasted every year due to inefficient water pumps.
MEEP is a programme to realize the immense potential that India has, to tap into savings from retrofitting inefficient municipality pump sets to bring about power and cost savings.
Solar Study Lamp Scheme (SSLC) SSLC is a scheme for supplying Solar power based studying lamps to School Children.
With 350 million children within the age bracket of 10 to 24, India has one of the youngest populations in the world. But a sizeable population of households in India are dependent on kerosene as their primary source of lighting due to erratic power supply.
Such an erratic electricity supply affects their education, limiting their hours of study.
While the government is aggressively working to enable electricity in every Indian household, a clean alternative source of lighting, independent of electricity supply, is a viable alternative.
The solar study lamp distributed by EESL consists of a photovoltaic module which converts sunlight into electricity, charging the battery which powers the LED luminaire. The lamp is designed to provide 4-5 hours of daily light every day.
The key objectives of the scheme include supporting education, livelihood generation, curbing kerosene dependency, generating awareness and confidence in solar technology, and reaching out to the most marginalised communities.
Street Lighting National Program (SLNP) India’s street lights form a crucial component of the nation’s investment on lighting and need innovative and future-ready solutions. The answer for this lies in LED technology which holds the promise of high efficiency and returns.
Along with being weather resistant, LED street lights are approximately 50% more energy efficient than incandescent bulbs and High-Pressure Sodium (HPS) lighting, along with being weather-resistant.
However, the takers for LED lights for street lights had been few due to the high initial costs and low awareness of their advantages.
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Street Lighting National Programme (SLNP) is hence a programme rolled out by EESL to increase the rollout of more energy efficient, low cost street lighting across India.
As per SLNP, EESL replaces conventional street lights with LEDs at its own costs with zero investment from the local bodies and municipal corporations and recovers this upfront investment in instalments from the Local bodies based on the consequent reduction in energy and maintenance cost of street lights. EESL not only guarantees a minimum energy saving (of typically 50%) but also provides free replacements and maintenance of lights at no additional cost for 7 years. A win-win deal for all!
As of July 2018, Street Lighting National Programme (SLNP) had illuminated 50,000 km of Indian roads with installation of 30 lakh LED streetlights across the country which had resulted in 39 crore kWh of annual energy savings, avoiding capacity of over 104.19 MW to the urban local bodies (ULBs).
Further, it has also helped in reduction of 3.29 lakh tonnes of CO2 annually.
A statistics on the number of street lights replaced include
7.85 lakh LED streetlights in Rajasthan,
6.03 lakh LED streetlights in Andhra Pradesh,
5.4 lakh LED streetlights in Gujarat and
lakhs like these in other states too.
A formidable number, an awe inspiring exercise and an awesome result!
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UJALA Launched in 2015, UJALA, acronym for Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LED for All, is the largest LED distribution program in the world. It aims to rectify India’s high cost of electrification and the increased emissions from inefficient lighting, amidst the backdrop of electricity demand witnessing a 5-fold increase over the coming years.
Under this programme, cost economical and energy efficient electrical fittings are distributed, such as,
20W LED tube lights that are 50% more energy efficient and 60% less expensive than conventional 40W tube lights
30% more energy efficient and low priced BEE 5 star rated ceiling fans etc.
The target is to distribute 770 million LEDs by March 2019 across 100 cities and the progress achieved until July 2018 seems promising indeed.
As sourced from EESL website
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Making A Choice Between Free Vs For A Price Most State Governments, a few decades ago, came up with a scheme of free electricity for farmers. While the political powers kept on renewing this scheme, the financial burden had to be borne by the State Electricity boards of each state.
The policy decision was taken by a political somebody and the financial brunt and burden had to be borne by somebody else – the State Electricity Boards. The people who took the financial brunt and burden had no say in the political policy matter.
This dichotomy rendered almost every State Electricity Board in the red. Due to which, the capacity to generate and supply power to the rural areas not only became erratic but also kept reducing in hours / day.
When Narendra Modi took over as Chief Minister of Gujarat he asked the farmers whether they wanted erratic, unsure, free power or continuous supply of power at a standard cost. The overwhelming majority of farmers assented to opt for regular power supply at standard price. This substantially increased the productivity of the farmers and thereon the profitability of the farmers and their lifestyle.
This move also in parallel improved the balance sheet of the Gujarat State Electricity Boards, which in turn led to proper supply of electricity all over the state. This led to a win- win situation between the productivity of the farmers and the financial health of the State Electricity Boards and thereby power supply for the whole state too.
It was a case of collaboration between people and Government not just in business model or finance but also in moral support and policy decision “taking”.
Throwing Light On A Doubt A look at all these distribution schemes and subsidies, might lead one to conclude that there really has been no change in psyche of Governance, since the Government is still subsidizing or providing freebies.
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A wider look will reveal that all these steps have been taken in such a manner, where the Government is only the facilitator and it is
the public who get to manufacture all these with the manufacturing enablement from the Government,
the public who get to benefit from the overall gains and savings that these cost and energy efficiencies bring in and
the nation which also gets to benefit from the overall Governing savings that these Administrative and Operational efficiencies bring in too.
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Clean Energy - Solar Energy In the four years between 2014 and 2018, the Government has changed much of India’s renewable energy landscape. With the Government’s focus on solar energy, Solar energy capacity increased from 2.63 GW in 2014, by over 8 times, to 22 GW in 2018.
Renewable power installed capacity has already reached over 70 GW.
Over 40 GW of renewable power capacity is under further construction.
The thinking itself has taken a quantum leap. In that, the nation is now talking in terms of Giga Watts instead of Mega Watts since India now has multiple sources of power. Everlasting Solution to Power Crisis
A Topsy Turvy World Ever since the world starting calling the power created through
depleting forms of fuels such as oil and gas, carbon etc. as conventional and
non-depleting, sustainable forms of energy such as Sun, Wind, Water, etc. as non- conventional, nations such as India, which are rich in non-depleting forms of energy, lost the race.
It was an irony in naming conventions.
It was an irony in the thought process itself.
It is only now, with the new term called “renewable energy”, “clean energy” that nations such as India and many others lying between the Tropics, are finding a new track for themselves and a new race to run with new rules.
Consortium of Sun Rich Nations Countries such as India and 121 others which have been considered as Sun Rich Nations are potential sources of Solar energy.
These Sun Rich Nations, Surya Putra Rashtra - nations that are children of the Sun, have a perennial source of Clean Energy and Clean Power. As per the vision of the Government, an International Solar Alliance (ISA) was instituted in 2015 by India and France jointly.
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The ISA was conceived as a coalition of solar resource-rich countries to address their special energy needs and provide a platform to collaborate on dealing with the identified gaps through a common, agreed approach. It is open to all 121 prospective member countries falling between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.
As of 2018 March, of the 121 prospective nations, 61 had joined the alliance and 32 had also ratified the framework agreement.
India has contributed $62 million to the ISA corpus fund and for the establishment of the ISA secretariat.
India has planned to provide 500 training slots per year for ISA member states.
13 solar projects by India across the world, worth $143 million, have been completed or are in the process of being executed.
India, is planning to give $1.4 billion in aid to 15 other developing nations for 27 more solar projects.
Further, India has set up a project preparation facility to offer consultancy support to partner countries in designing bankable projects.
India is set to launch a Solar Technology Mission in which Indian governmental, technical and academic institutions will lead in R&D efforts in the solar sector but the focus will be global. The R&D will focus particularly on areas of efficient storage systems, develop cost- efficient solar technologies as well as applications
India is thus leading this consortium both with technological capability as well as in a governing capacity.
Renewable Energy And Solar Energy The ISA is an effort to ensure that, as these countries, the Suryaputra Rashtra, increase their electricity production, they should predominantly use solar energy and avoid fossil fuels.
ISA also seeks to boost global demand, which will result in further reduction in the prices of solar energy deployment. It seeks to boost research and development, particularly in areas of efficient storage systems. The ISA aims to develop cost-efficient solar technologies and applications.
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It seeks to promote standardization in the use of equipment and processes for generating electricity as standardization will make the manufacturing of equipment and other hardware cheaper.
th Year 2019, being the 150 birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, has been dedicated to Cleanliness and Power across India.
Plans are afoot to generate 175 GW of power in the form of Renewable energy by 2022. Of this, 100 GW will come from solar source.
By March 2018, India had already achieved a target of 20 GW of installed solar power.
All these cumulatively are placing India as a leading solar energy nation, a Surya Shakti Rashtra.
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Clean Minds - International Day of Yoga Yoga is a practice by which mind, body and breath are aligned together to achieve a state of inner peace, harmony and wellbeing.
Yoga has been one of the brands of India for many millennia.
The government has given special importance to Yoga, for maintaining a good health. The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, himself too serves as a role model for the practice of Yoga.
The Prime Minister, in his address to the UN Assembly in September 2014, made a request to formalize June 21st as International Yoga Day. The UN body adopted this resolution and passed it with an overwhelming majority in December 2014.
The world now has a new day to observe and celebrate – An International Day of Yoga!
What is even more amazing is that, the proposal from India to the UN, to declare June 21st as World Yoga Day was seconded and co-sponsored by an unprecedented number of 175 nations out of 193.
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This is indeed a remarkable feat. Normally, so many countries coming together in the UN General Assembly to pass a resolution on a commemorating day, is rare indeed.
International Yoga Day, has influenced many people across the world to take to Yoga. The Indian Prime Minister has himself set an example in performance of Yoga, which he displays on every Yoga Day.
Prime Minister Shr Narendra Modi on International Day of Yogs
Why June 21st ? Why did India request for June 21st to be declared as the International Yoga Day?
One of the main Yogic exercises is Suryanamaskar, i.e Sun Salutations.
June 21st is the day when the Sun rises farthest north in the sky, touching the Tropic of Capricorn in the sky. It is the day of Summer Solstice and the longest day.
With this underlying thought of connecting people to the Sun and Nature through Yoga, India proposed June 21st for Yoga Day.
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A fitting Tribute In the choice and declaration of June 21st as International Yoga Day, one can see many unions such as
1. Union of a natural, Solar phenomenon with Yoga, epitomized by the SuryaNamaskar, Sun Salutations.
2. Union of the efforts of the Government and the Yoga and Spiritual Community in India, spearheaded by Gurus such as Sr Sri Ravishankar, Shri BKS Iyengar etc., to immortalize an offering from India for the benefit of the world at large
3. Union of all the Governments of the world to unanimously accept the proposal, in the interest of health for all.
4. Union of the breath of all across the world, unmindful of race, religion and region, as their breath goes in and out in unison.
Gurudev Sri Sri Ravishankar addressing all Yoga participants at The Times Square, New York, USA on the 1st International Day of Yoga on June 21st, 2014.
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With this step, a new practice has set in – that of “celebrating” Yoga and for being grateful to those who have kept alive, this age old practice, which has been benefiting generations after generations.
New India has rightfully claimed its place as a brand ambassador of Yoga, a universal offering from ancient India, with the potential to align all bodies and minds, across the world, towards the common goal of self-realization, oneness, unity and peace.
A Sign Of India’s Growing Soft Power The phrase “Soft power”, is used today to describe the potential of a nation to influence the world at large with its ideas, character, culture, products, models and philosophy behind its conduct, in contrast to “Hard power” such as military, alliances, policies and sanctions.
The unprecedented scale, smoothness and speed seen in the institution of the International Day of Yoga by UN, is just one indication of India’s growing Soft Power in International circles.
A sign of growth in the status of India in International circles is gradually becoming evident in the increased respect for Indian passport too, worldwide. This can be felt through the increased relaxation of entry rules for Indians by foreign governments as well as increased acceptance by foreign public.
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PART 5 – SECURING PEACE & HAPPINESS
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Marching Towards Peace and Happiness Of what use is the health and wealth of a nation if the people in the nation cannot be at peace and happy.
However, happiness can come only when one is in peace with oneself and the world outside.
Thus for India to be happy, it has to be at peace – within itself, with itself and the world around it.
A Safe New India To be at peace with itself, it has to first, seek to remove the physical obstacles that stand in the way of being in peace, of living without fear of terror or worry about safety.
Towards this goal of making India more safe salient steps were taken by the Government to
Minimize the increasing instances of terror attacks
Minimize instances of violence on women and children.
A Just New India Unless there is Social Justice, there can be no happiness around, in the nation. Hence many steps were taken to ensure
Better opportunities and enablement of the “Divyang”, the specially abled people
Rehabilitation of the displaced Tribals of India
Support to the citizens tagged as “Schedule Caste” and “Schedule Tribes”, SC and ST, to bring them on par with other citizens of India
Review and Reform of policies and Acts with respect to minorities in India as also the majority of India to ensure no one is disadvantaged as a citizen in this nation
Fairness in the working of the judiciary
Reformation of wrong doers, with the ultimate step of even pronouncing death sentence in appropriate cases to deter wrong doings in the nation
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Empowerment of Women and
Support to the economically underprivileged and Below Poverty Line citizens.
A Friendly New India India is one country that claims to fly its flag as a sign of friendship. Infact the first Indian concert in United Nations, on its 50th anniversary in 1966, which was sung by the Bharat Ratna, Nightingale of India by her voice, Late. Smt.M.S.Subhalakshmi, featured the song
“Maitreem Bhajata”
“O World! Cultivate friendship”.
This was a song composed by one of India’s wisest sages in recent times, His Holiness Jagadguru Shri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati, Shankaracharya of Kanchipuram, renowned as the Paramacharya of Kanchi.
In keeping with this age old philosophy of India, the Government, especially the Prime Minister and the Ministers of External Affairs Ministry, undertook extensive travel, all around the world and met with the leaders, the people and the Indian diaspora there, extending India’s hand of friendship and inviting them to partake in the growth of New India.
Many of the efforts taken have already started bearing fruits.
For instance, India succeeded in delinking its friendship with Palestine and the Arab world, while visiting Israel and vice-versa. India chose to maintain relations with both and despite this stand Indo-Israel ties have seen an unprecedented growth in the years since 2014.
Even so, these are still the initial steps. The journey is still long indeed and the pace of the march will have to be atleast sustained even through the next few decades, if not quickened, to reach the desired destination without getting lost enroute.
A Firm New India New India is all of friendly, open, cooperative, compassionate and inviting in its policies. Yet, when it comes to the question of terror and safety, ownership and rights of its people or assets, New India has also shown that it can be firm in its dealings, whether domestic or international.
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For instance, while India is committed to protecting those, who have rightfully and legally, sought refuge in this land, at the same time India is also committed to first protect the rights of its own citizens vis-à-vis those who have illegally migrated into India in large numbers.
For, in many instances, illegal migrants in large numbers, who become concentrated in border areas, end up to become the majority there and start posing danger to the lawful citizens themselves and to themselves in backlash.
Illegal migrants come into India due to 3 main possible reasons:
1. For better livelihood and opportunities
2. For indulging in unlawful activities such as terrorism, activism, trafficking, smuggling, etc.
3. For seeking refuge from oppression and forced conversions in Pakistan and Bangladesh - these typically are erstwhile citizens of the pre-1947 India, who chose to continue to stay in their homes in the then, newly carved out, partitioned nations, only to be later harassed and forced to convert in those countries of choice. They typically would fall into one or the other 6 religions of India, namely Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Parsi, Buddhist and Christianity.
In the light of development of such situations, steps such as introduction of Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016, have been taken with a need to amend the Citizenship Act of 1955 in order to address the issue of illegal migrants into Assam but on humanitarian grounds.
The Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016 seeks to amend the Citizenship Act of 1955 such that
illegal migrants into India from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh
belonging to the 6 minority religions in those countries,
namely Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Parsi and Christianity,
who have been in India for the last 11 out of 14 years,
out of which last 12 months have been continuously in India, would be granted citizenship.
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All other migrants, namely Muslim migrants, who are the majority in these 3 countries but who have illegally migrated into India for whatever reason, were to return or be deported back to their country or would be imprisoned in India.
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Significant Reduction in Terror Attacks There has been a significant decline in terror attacks between the years, 2014 to 2018.
Home Ministry data shows that there were 19 instances of terror incidents in India from 2006 to 2013 such as,
1. Bomb Blast at Margoa in 2009
2. Blast at Pune’s German Bakery in 2010
3. Blast at Delhi’s Mehrauli in 2008
4. Blast at Bangalore Cricket Stadium in 2010
5. Blast near Delhi’s Jama Masjid in 2006
6. Bomb Blast at Sheetla Ghat in Varanasi in 2010
7. Bomb Blast near Delhi High Court parking in 2011
8. Mumbai Train bombings in 2006
9. Serial Bomb blast in Mumbai in 2011
10. Agra Blast in 2011
11. Terror attack on Israeli embassy car in 2012
12. Serial Blast in Pune in 2012
13. Bomb Blast in Bodh Gaya in 2013
14. Bomb Blast in Hyderabad in 2007
15. Serial Blast in Patna in 2013
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Blast at Delhi High Court in 2011
Blast at Pune’s German Bakery in 2010
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Hyderabad Bomb Blast in 2007 These are apart from the Ghastly 26 / 11 attacks of 2008, in Mumbai.
The Mumbai 26/11 Attack in 2008
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In comparison, 4 instances of terrorist incidents have taken place since 2014, namely at
1. Gurudaspur in 2015,
2. Kokrajahar attacks in 2016,
3. Bhopal-Ujjain passenger train bombing and
4. Amarnath Yatra attackes in 2017.
Much in contrast to the claims that “India is no longer safe”, actual data and statistics show that India has become safer vis-a-vis terrorist attacks, since 2014.
One of the hallmarks of New India is this reduction in terrorist attacks across all the states of India, irrespective of the political party in power in the state.
This has been due to India’s internal security having been tightened with increased proactiveness and alertness.
These steps taken by the Government, with its tightened security, intelligence and proactiveness, are slowly changing the image of India from being a “Insecure and Unsafe” nation into a “Firm and Safe” nation.
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Surgical Strikes India under this government carried our two surgical strikes, to send a strong message to terrorists and to let people know that the country can defend itself.
Surgical Strike At Indo-Myanmar Border On 10thJune 2015, Indian Army conducted surgical strikes against the terrorist camps along the Indo-Myanmar border and killed around 158 terrorists. This was after the terrorists had martyred 18 Army Jawans. This was the first time that India showed that it could respond effectively to the enemy and strike them right at their den.
Surgical Strike At Pak Occupied Kashmir (PoK) After this, came the Surgical Strike in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) in September 2016. Pakistan, from its militant launch pads, across the Line of Control, had been sending terrorists into Jammu and Kashmir, for many years now. These terrorists used to sneek into the Indian Territory and carry our terrorist attacks on the civilians and the Army. One such major terrorist attack was on the Uri Camp of Indian Army in September 2016, martyring many Indian soldiers.
Indian Army decided to respond appropriately and carried our surgical strike in POK on 29th September 2016, by crossing over into the enemy territory and destroying many terrorist launch pads.
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The option of surgical strike was resorted to in the wake of increase in infiltration attempts.
In this Surgical Strike, carried out by the Indian Army, 38 terrorists were annihilated and their camps destroyed.
Indian Soldiers in Action during the Surgical Strike
Leaving aside reactive rhetoric, New India has shown that it can respond effectively to terrorism.
Military Strength, Political Will and Moral Character The difference in New India, is
the manner in which it has gone ahead and carried out such Surgical Strikes and
the manner in which it has acted, post these Surgical Strikes.
All along from 1947, when Pakistan separated from India, it has been a well-known fact across the globe that Pakistan has been trying to instigate and cause disturbances in India.
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Israel too has been facing similar situations from its neighbours from a similar period of time. Isreal is known for having carried out repeated surgical strikes to handle their issue, including the famous Operation Entebbe, a successful counter-terrorist and hostage-rescue mission carried out by commandos of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) all the way, at Entebbe Airport in Uganda on 4 July 1976, when Uganda openly offered support to the hijackers of the Air France plane carrying 98 Jews and Israelis.
In Pakistan itself, when USA was sure of the hiding location of Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad, they carried out a surgical strike as a war on terror.
Despite having a lot of proof, while India had the military capacity, India had refrained all along from launching Surgical Strikes near its borders.
With these 2 Surgical Strikes, India in a decisive and bold manner cleansed India’s North West and North East borders of frequent terror attacks that India has had to suffer for so long.
However, after carrying out the strike at PoK, India informed the Pakistani authorities through proper channel about the strike, before informing the world.
Likewise, in the case of the Myanmar strike, after the event, India took care to have a joint meeting with the Myanmar authorities.
Thus India demonstrated
1. military strength and political will to carry out the strikes and
2. character to follow due processes with the other nation, post the strike.
These highlight the strength of character which is becoming the hallmark of the emerging New India.
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Respect for Armed Forces
A Shift in Attitude The history of underplaying the effort, role and dignity of the Indian Armed Forces goes back to the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971 for liberation of Bangladesh. This war had 2 aspects to it.
1. Diplomatic relations between the Indian Government and the East Pakistan freedom movement, Mukti Bahini
2. Military duel between the Armed forces of India and Pakistan.
Despite the huge effort put in by the Indian Armed Forces and the massive victory won due to their strategic and bold initiatives, the role played by the Armed Forces was not highlighted or rewarded enough, lest the Armed Forces overshadow the role played by the Government.
Ever since, attitude towards the Armed Forces had only deteriorated gradually, vis-à-vis the attention the Armed Forces could command from the administration in the Government, towards the issues faced by them.
India’s Armed Forces have not been receiving their dues in cash, kind or respect, which had led to dissatisfaction amongst them and grievances with regard to
Amount of pension fixed for those retired and their widows
Distribution of pension to the aged ex-Servicemen or their survivors
Neglect of ex-Servicemen, war disabled and family of martyrs
Leave and Travel while in service etc.
Furthermore, the image of the Armed Forces was allowed to take a hit with continued and unchecked highlighting of sporadic incidents of violation instead of the constant hardships faced by them in guarding tense borders and explosive cities.
The cases of stone pelting in Kashmir and the organized efforts of various interest groups to paint the armed forces in the wrong and ask for their penalization due to other interests and biases, was also bringing down their morale.
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A soldier being pelted with stones by public. Image Source-PTI
All these irritants finally came together and snowballed into the One Rank One Pension (OROP) demand.
One Rank One Pension
A One Way Communication One Rank One Pension had been a longstanding demand of the Indian Armed forces, who had been demanding that soldiers of the same rank, who have retired after serving for the same length of period, be granted the same pension, irrespective of their retirement date.
Issue Based On 2006 Pay Commission This issue came to fore when the 6th Pay Commission was implemented in 2006. As per this commission, there arose huge differences between the pension of soldiers of the same rank, who had retired prior to 2006 and those who were to leave service after 2006.
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One Rank One Pension (OROP), A Reality The web of issues created over 30 years were quickly looked into by the new Government that came into power in 2014 and resolved by the Government within 1 year of coming into power.
The Government fulfilled this longstanding demand of its soldiers and brought in One Rank One Pension, with effect from 1st July 2014.
One Rank One Pension ensures that at any point in time, all soldiers of the same rank will receive the same pension, irrespective of when they had retired. A soldier who had retired in 1985 for instance would draw the same pension as the soldier retiring in 2019 for instance.
This was a major step towards keeping up the dignity as well as motivation of the Soldiers of the Nation!
The Government has since been taking steps to change the outlook of the country and its people towards the Armd Forces.
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Diplomacy Transcending Governments For Humanity
An Odd Border And An Odder Barrier If we look at the borders between India and Bangladesh, prior to 2015, it was one of the strangest in the world with 162 Indian and Bangladesh enclaves and 50000 people living within them.
Map highlighting the enclaves in India and Bangladesh Source – Business Insider, Aug 4, 2015 An enclave is a piece of land belonging to one country but lying embedded within another country. Such enclaves are known as Chitmahal in India.
There were 111 such enclaves within Bangladesh and 51 enclaves within India.
Some of these were embedded more than once over.
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For instance, the world’s only 3rd order enclave lay in this set of enclaves. It was Dahala Khagrabari, a parcel of land of 1.7 acres (7000 sq.mt) belonging to India, but within Bangladesh, within India, within Bangladesh Mainland.
Dahala Khagrabari, world's only third-order enclave before 2015, A 7000 sq.mt piece of India, within Bangladesh, within India, within Bangladesh Odd Challenges, Even More Hardships These enclaves were posing a security risk on multiple counts as they were giving rise to lot of illegal migrations, nefarious activities and demography related issues in those regions.
But, more than all this, they were causing hardships to both the people living there as well as the 2 Governments.
In 1952, the two governments agreed to introduce Passport and VISA controls. This agreement however, made no mention of the inhabitants of the enclaves. Since then, people living in these enclaves were virtually trapped in their enclave, as stepping out meant they needed VISAs.
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If VISAs expired, having to extend them further, meant having to step out of their native enclave into foreign territory and further into their native land, to get the needful done.
From their own country, they had to make an illegal transit through the foreign territory, to reach their own country again, to get a VISA for the foreign territory. Thus, it was becoming a chicken and egg situation.
Even for procuring items for basic needs, these people had to step out illegally into foreign territory under fear of action by both Indian and Bangladeshi authorities.
Governments too were finding it difficult to reach out to their respective citizens through the various layers of boundaries to be crossed, that were sandwiched between one another.
The people of these enclaves literally belonged to neither India nor Bangladesh. They lived in fear and neglect of both.
A checkpoint on the India-Bangladesh border in Assam. People having to verify themselves when they cross borders to graze their cattle. Reuters A Milestone Agreement Signed After 68 years of Independence, the enclaves and the residing population, were finally exchanged by India and Bangladesh, so that both countries would have contiguous borders, making it easier for them to manage their lands and people respectively.
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India’s Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Begum Sheikh Hasina at the signing ceremony of agreements in Dhaka (Reuters) It was a major achievement for India in international relations and the resolution of this issue in 2015 gains more significance for,
1. it was an issue that was being closed after close to 70 years
2. it was an issue that had not been resolved on 2 earlier occasions when India had held an upper hand at the table of negotiations.
1st Lost Opportunity In April 1950, a pact was signed between Pakistan and India, called the Liaquat – Nehru Pact or Delhi Pact, which sought to guarantee the rights of the minorities created in both India and Pakistan, due to the partition of India in 1947 and to prevent clashes between them in both lands.
The minorities in both nations were meant to be looked after and protected by the Government of the nation, which they had chosen to be their home.
According to this Delhi pact, refugees were to be allowed
to return unmolested to dispose off their property, abducted women and looted property were to be returned, forced conversions were unrecognized and minority rights were confirmed.
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A file photo of India’s PM, Jawaharlal Nehru (left) and Pakistan’s PM, Liaquat Ali (right) signing the Liaquat-Nehru pact of 1950. The cigarette in Liaquat’s hand during this solemn event is perhaps an indication of how little value Pakistan was giving to this pact then.
With this, Pakistan was securing protection for those Muslims who had fled to Pakistan out of choice and wanted to return to India to either sort their matters or resettle again. It was a side of the bargain that India was to honour sincerely.
Whereas in the case of India, no Hindu who had fled to India from East Pakistan wanted to even turn and look back at East Pakistan, as they were being deprived of their social, cultural, economic, religious and political rights in East Pakistan. There were continued atrocities being committed on minorities in East Pakistan. Also, even as the pact was being signed, Pakistan was already violating the pact. Hindus were fleeing from East Pakistan into India due to oppression and forced conversions there. From a 1 Crore 40 lakh Hindu minority in East Pakistan, 45 lakh had returned back to West Bengal in India.
India could have pulled Pakistan up for these violations and using this upper hand as an opportune moment, could have asked for land to house these new citizens then, as a penalty on Pakistan for having violated the pact.
But, it is very clear that the Indian Government then, did not want to press for punitive action on Pakistan as Dr.Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, who was a Minister on the cabinet
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then, resigned on that count, against difference of views on the migrations and a lop sided Delhi Pact which was continuously being violated by Pakistan.
All these enclaves could have been exchanged and borders redrawn on this negotiation table, way back in 1950 itself. It was a lost opportunity then.
Dr. Shyama Prasad.Mukherjee with refugees returning from East Pakistan (Bangladesh) in 1950
2nd Lost Opportunity 20 years later, in 1971, when Bangladesh was born with the help of the action of the Indian forces, then again, it was an opportune moment to exchange the enclaves.
The prime ministers of India and Bangladesh signed a Land Boundary Agreement in 1974 to, in principle, exchange all enclaves and simplify the international border. While Bangladesh was ready to approve the subsequently proposed Land Boundary Agreement, India did not ratify it.
Despite India having held an upper hand then, India had not managed to resolve it to her satisfaction. An opportunity was lost then too.
In Hindsight On both these occasions, India had held the upper hand at the negotiating table and could have used it to India’s advantage.
Had they been exchanged way back, then itself, it would have made life easier for the enclave population.
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India’s eastern borders too, would have got sealed tighter and many of the issues plaguing eastern and northeastern parts of India could have been averted.
Yet Another Attempt Another exchange agreement was reached in 2011, but it took 4 more years to finally credit get some modifications done and actually inked and effected in 2015 under the diplomatic efforts of the Government of 2014.
Commitment To Integrate and Act
Finally Integrated The isolated enclaves and the 50000 odd people living there were finally integrated with either of the 2 nations of their choice and the borders too were redrawn to be contiguous.
That, it was finally closed in 2015 speaks of the steps taken by the New India Government to integrate the efforts put across different terms of Governments within India and between Governments of India and Bangladesh.
Credit for Action The credit for completing the fine print, signing the agreement and peacefully exchanging the enclaves and people has to go to this Government indeed.
With the inking of the agreement and the hard closure of this 68 years long open, one of world’s strangest border issues, the Government since 2014 has assured the people of India of its commitment to secure Indian borders very diligently and effectively.
More importantly, it has shown New India’s commitment to humanity, as this enables the people in these erstwhile enclaves to get the required attention and facilities from at least one of the nations of their choice, albeit the emotional disturbances that typically accompany such border dispute resolution.
These successful international transactions speak for the dynamism and action that India has been bringing into its relationships with its immediate neighbours since 2014.
It shows the will of New India to take up and close pending issues with its neighbours to the mutual satisfaction of both Governments and humane considerations of the peoples.
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It shows the wish of New India to engage with its neighbours, looking forward to joint progress, by resolving past issues quickly and satisfactorily.
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Fencing Borders
India’s Borders International Borders between countries are usually left unfenced unless there are border disputes or other infiltration issues. The British, during the course of their rule, left a larger India partitioned as Afghanistan, West Pakistan (now Pakistan), East Bangladesh (now Bangladesh) and India.
The borders drawn by the British have a lot of history behind them and post British, have been leading to contentions between India and Pakistan (East and West) ever since 1947 when India and Pakistan separated. These unresolved border issues for India, have assumed the form of post-1947 incursions, to faceoffs, to wars, to infiltrations, to terrorist attacks besides illegal immigrations.
Hence, securing atleast India’s undisputed borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh with barbed fencing features high on India’s Defence agenda. This is besides guarding and defending at the Lines of Control in the disputed borders with China and Nepal too apart from Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Indo-Bangladesh Border Subsequent to the exchange of enclaves with Bangladesh and obtaining a contiguous border, India has been working in securing the borders with Bangladesh, by fencing the entire length. The India Bangladesh border has been of continuous concern to both Governments so far, as a cause for insurgency by terrorists and activists, for nefarious acivities such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, cattle smuggling, printing of counterfeit money and so on, as well as for illegal migrations, all of which were causing friction in bilateral ties between both nations.
Since 2014, India has been working to improve the bilateral ties with Bangladesh and as a sign of relationship being at a peak, the 2 nations have started resolving many issues that had been a spoke in the wheel of relations between them, the primary ones being
1. The exchange of enclaves
2. Redrawing of border post exchange and
3. Securing the border with a new fencing.
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With this background, in December 2015 the Government sanctioned barbed wire fencing of 3326.14 km along the Indo-Bangladesh border, of which close to 95% has been achieved by July 2018.
It is planned to complete securing it fully by 2019.
Some of the parts of the border, which fall in rivers, marshy lands, hills and other difficult terrains, are being secured using newer, integrated technologies such as Laser walls and the likes.
Indo-Pakistan Border Likewise, post some of the terrorist attacks in Pathankot and Uri, barbed wire fencing of 2071.42 km along the Indo-Pakistan border was also taken up for a speedy completion.
The entire 3323 km long Indo-Pak border poses a challenge for barbed wire fencing completely due to terrain or climatic conditions such as, Many places of Jammu and Kashmir are mountainous Rivers flowing across the borders such as Jhelum, cannot be fenced. Marshy lands in borders in Gujarat, near Rann of Kutchh, do not lend to fencing physically due to alternate periods of dry and wet.
Despite open borders, terrorists have largely been unable to infiltrate such areas for, the Border Security Force (BSF) of India has been actively guarding these borders day in, day out.
However, as a measure of relief to the BSF and inorder to make the borders tighter with lesser, armed resources, integrated technologies are being deployed by the Government to fence such hostile terrain.
Called Smart Fencing, these are a virtual fence which are usually invisible and do not allow a pass through. These fences are designed to create a territorial boundary. They comprise various sensors and laser based technology to form Lazer Walls for instance, which can detect movement and sound the siren to alert or take other follow up action.
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A Lazer Wall At the Border The Indo-Pak border should get sealed completely using all these technologies by end of 2018.
Hopefully that should bring an end to infiltration and dip in terrorism in India as well.
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Foreign Policy and External Affairs
Securing Friendship Ties India’s foreign policy, post-Independence, can be slotted into different phases and appropriate approaches in each phase.
As An Underdeveloped, 3rd World, India This was during the first few decades post-Independence. India’s foreign policy was influenced by the 2 big powers of the world then, namely USA and USSR, who were at a cold war with each other, then.
As it was a period of building India, India was in need of aid and was open to it from both East and West - from countries such as UK, Germany, USA, Japan and USSR. India therefore advocated and adopted a Non Aligned policy along with many other newly formed, newly independent, 3rd world countries of the world.
This was also a period marked by wars with Pakistan and China. Though India had enjoyed a good rapport with USA until then, India finally had to lean a little more towards USSR, given USA’s leaning towards Pakistan.
India’s economic backwardness had been a major factor for the adoption of the policy of non-alignment. In this phase of its history therefore, India had held good ties with both the east as well as the west but it was one of looking up to others for India’s own economic development.
As a Nation Shifting from Underdeveloped to Developing This was the decades around 1970s.
The axis of the world was shifting from being bi-polar to uni-polar.
India had also evolved diplomatically
During this window, India moved away from Non Alignment (NAM) and CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting) to specific trade blocs.
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As a Developing Nation Since the 1980s, with India making foray into IT in a large way and with Indian brains opting for the West as the destination for study and work, the ties between India and the USA started seeing a rising trend once again.
With the imminent disintegration of USSR in 1991 and an emerging collaboration with Japan and Europe too, India was beginning to open up to newer industries and newer ways of economic models.
New associations grew with new friends who were growing fast like India.
BRICS was formed with India as one of the 5 emerging powers of the world in 2006.
With its deepening association with Japan, South Korea and other S.E.Asian countries, India began to move from a “Look West Policy” to a “Look East Policy”.
India was developing herself very fast to close the various gaps internally and globally.
However, India was still in a catching up mode.
As a Nation Shifting from Developing to Developed From 2014, India has decided to move in fast gear towards achieving the status of a Developed nation. It has cast off its old image of being a passive player and started adopting leadership attitude with its New India image.
From Look East, India upgraded its policy to Act East.
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New India’s Strides And Imprints On The Globe
The Many Firsts In the last 4 years, the Prime Minister of India, through his travels across the world has been working
towards engaging world leaders to invest in the New India
towards rousing the Indian diaspora, which is well spread, well entrenched and doing well all over the world, to do something back for their country and
towards turning around the perception of India, as the new happening place in the world.
He specifically chose to visit such countries that an Indian Prime Minister had never before visited or had not visited for a long time, some, even in the last 50 to 60 years such as Israel, Mongolia, Nepal etc.
For the first time, an Indian Prime Minister went out in public, to meet the Indian diaspora and the foreign public in foreign lands. He even attended public rallies in foreign lands to update people about the New India.
For the first time in Indian history, out of the 192 nations in the UN, Indian Government has sent ministerial level missions to 186 nations in less than 4 years, within one term itself.
For the first time, an Indian Prime Minister is being held, as one of world’s foremost leaders, sought after by various International leaders, in various International meetings.
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PM Modi with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron at the G-20 Summit in Hamburg in July 2017. (PTI Photo) The Act-East Act New India has been working since 2014, with an Act East policy, which puts the Look East policy into a more proactive and leadership role.
For starters, all the leaders of the SAARC nations attended the swearing in of Shri Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister of India.
Indo-Japan relationship soared to an all time high since 2014.
In 2015, India was admitted into SCO (Shangai Cooperation Organization) formed to focus on the Eurasian region.
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SCO Nations Entry Into Regimes Besides the various global, formal and informal, political and economical, regulatory and interest bodies that India has been part of in its history, the New India mission of the Government has put India on the map of some of the active international trade control regimes of the world today.
One of the factors contributing to the New India image of India, is its successful entry into export control regimes of the world.
Since its civil nuclear deal with the USA in 2008, India had been trying to gain entry into the 4 export control regimes of the world namely, NSG, MTCR, WA and AG. While India is yet to get admitted into the NSG, it has managed to successfully gain membership into the other 3 since 2014.
Such multilateral export control regimes play a crucial role in enabling or curbing the defence and nuclear capacity of capable nations worldwide. Only when a country is a member of such bodies and shows intention and proof of responsible behaviour in such sensitive technologies, can it import, develop and export such technologies and products.
Membership into such regimes is thus like a defacto accreditation to deal in arms, weapons, defence equipment and nuclear technologies and is essential for both technological
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progress of a nation as well as security of the nation. Hence, admission into these regimes is critical to the growth of India.
Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) MTCR is a multilateral export control regime. It is an informal and voluntary partnership among 35 countries to prevent the proliferation of missile and unmanned aerial vehicle technology capable of carrying above 500 kg payload for more than 300 km.
Due to the ballistic and cruise missile threat continuing to increase with the development of missile technology and over 20 countries having ballistic missile systems, vigilance too has become stepped up world over. Holding a MTCR membership makes it possible for India to buy high-end missile technology as well as the state of the art drones that it has been wanting to procure, for long.
India’s entry into MTCR as its 35th member in 2016, is also being viewed at, as being mutually beneficial in meeting international non-proliferation objectives.
MTCR Members China, incidentally, is not a member of the MTCR though it is a member of the Nuclear Surveillance Group (NSG).
Wassenaar Arrangement (WA) The Wassenaar Arrangement, a multilateral export control regime (MECR), formally established in July 1996, is an elite club of countries, which subscribe to arms export controls and exchange information on transfers of conventional weapons and dual-use goods and technologies.
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The objective of this arrangement is to use such exchanges to promote "greater responsibility" among its members in exports of weapons and dual-use goods and to prevent "destabilizing accumulations". Participants are required to "ensure that transfers of these items do not contribute to the development or enhancement of military capabilities which undermine the goal". The aim, according to WA, is also to prevent the acquisition of these items by terrorists.
Wassenaar, is a suburb of The Hague, where the agreement to start such a multi-lateral cooperation was reached in 1995.
Wassenaar is not targeted at any region or group of states, but rather at "states of concern" to members unlike the earlier body called COCOM (Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls) which was created during the Cold War era to restrict exports to the former Soviet Union and Eastern bloc then.
India gained entry into the Wassenaar Arrangement, in December 2017 as its 42nd member.
The Wassenaar Arrangement Members The WA membership is expected to raise India’s stature in the field of non-proliferation, besides helping it acquire critical technologies.
The WA membership is also expected to build up a strong case for India’s entry into the 48- member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). With the exception of China, all the other
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permanent members of the U.N. Security Council are signatories of the WA, which is headquartered in Vienna.
Australia Group (AG) The Australia Group too is a multilateral export control regime (MECR) and an informal group of 43 countries including the European Commission and 28 countries in the European Union.
It was established in 1985 under the initiative of Australia, after the use of chemical weapons by Iraq in 1984, to help member countries to identify those exports, which need to be controlled so as not to contribute to the spread of chemical and biological weapons. Australia continues to manage the Secretariat for the group.
Members of the group maintain export controls on a uniform list of compounds, which stand at 54 as of July 2018. These include several chemicals that are not prohibited for export under the Chemical Weapons Convention, but can be used in the manufacture of chemical weapons.
India became its 43rd member in January 2018 due to a show of support from the international community for India’s non-proliferation records.
Australia Group India’s entry would be mutually beneficial and further contribute to international security and non-proliferation objectives.
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This entry is a sign that India’s export controls and safeguards for biological and chemical agents, equipments and technologies meet the benchmarks established by the international community.
Reviving CHOGM Connects India attended the CHOGM after a gap of a decade and has also pooled in capital to create a fund for trade initiatves of smaller states in CHOGM.
The renewed participation of India is being viewed with lot of optimism and expectation by the CHOGM states.
Thus New India is poised to make waves in the coming decade.
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Overcoming International Barriers Locally
SAMEEP - Bringing International to Nationals SAMEEP (Students And Ministry of External Affairs Engagement Program) is a voluntary outreach program initiated by the Ministry of External Affairs in India with an aim to take India’s foreign policy and its global engagements to students across country and thereby encourage them to look at diplomacy as a career option.
The name of this program itself was crowd-sourced through the My Gov portal and chosen out of the 550 suggested entries.
Officials from this Ministry, considered “an elite Ministry”, travel into rural India and communicate with locals about India’s contributions and its image worldwide thus instilling in them
a pride about India,
awareness about global affairs,
intricacies in global politics and
an aspiration to become India’s diplomat in future.
Easing Foreign Travel For Its Citizens With the introduction of unique identity initiatives such as AADHAAR, PAN card etc, the need for a passport arises in present times, only in case of foreign travel.
To speed up the process of issue of passports for this genuine need, as against the 77 Passport offices that existed in India earlier, 227 new offices have opened since 2014, resulting in a New India that understands the need of speed especially in situations of international travel.
Diplomacy For Domestic Development For the first time services and diplomatic relations of Indian missions, overseas and Indian diplomats, overseas were used to further development, domestically.
The Indian missions, overseas were roped in to survey their respective operating regions for Solutions, Technologies and Funds for the various programs initiated in India, as part of
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the New India initiative, such as Clean India, Skill India, Startup India, Digital India, Smart Cities etc. Onpce identified, their diplomatic relations were put to effective use to quickly set up MoUs with suitable foreign partners and implement the programs with speed and scale.
Not only did it increase bilateral foreign collaborations, but it also managed to quickly address the need in India for both, proven expertise and quick access to funds to implement these programs successfully.
E-Migrate Given the increasing number of Indian sailors accepting jobs on foreign ships as well as the increasing number of instances where they have been stranded overseas without even food and water or jailed for trespassing, the Government has rolled out a system called the e- Migrate wherein are available details of,
1. all those overseas companies which offer employment to Indian sailors
2. all Indian sailors who have taken up employment with foreign ships
3. all registered agents who recruit sailors on behalf of the foreign employers.
This has made it easy for the Government to step in and protect the rights of Indian sailors as well as ensure that they do not get exploited by foreign companies.
In case of any eventuality too, it enables the Government to do the needful to help the Indian Sailors get atleast minimum wages, their due salaries and overcome other hurdles or even come back home, when they get stranded or jailed for trespassing.
Students Registration Portal Likewise, the number of Indian students pursuing higher education programs abroad is sizeable and estimated to stand at nearly 6.5 lakhs.
In July 2015, a Students Registration Portal was launched, inorder to collect data about the number of Indian students abroad, courses they are pursuing and to enable a more effective grievance redressing mechanism.
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The registration in this portal is voluntary for Indian students abroad but the database of students collected through the portal will enable them getting contacted by the Indian Missions in the event of an emergency.
Use Of Social Media For Emergencies Given the distances and time involved to access help from overseas, the Ministry of External Affairs has also kept its Social Media channels open for receiving complaints and requests for help. Many such cases which reached the Minister herself through Social Media were taken up for quick action and have been resolved successfully in a timely manner.
Evacuation Of Indians The Government’s success in repeatedly and effectively, evacuating Indian nationals caught in conflicts and emergencies arising overseas, has earned New India an image of being a responsive and responsible nation.
There are instances, like the evacuation out of Yemen, where the Minister of State for External Affairs. Gen (Retd). V.K.Singh, himself had gone personally to ensure a safe evacuation of Indian citizens from the conflict zone.
Gen (Retd) V.K.Singh, Minister of State, External Affairs, personally ensuring success of evacuation of Indians from Yemen during Operation Raahat
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In Yemen, besides evacuating the 4000 Indians stranded, the Indian mission at the request of other countries also managed to evacuate citizens of US, Germany and France, which was highly appreciated by the international community.
Overall, 90000 Indian citizens have been evacuated so far from such conflict areas, by the Indian Government and brought back home safely.
Pleading For Pardon or Justice Likewise, New India has also shown that every one of its citizen is important to it.
It has taken up the cases of many Indian nationals languishing in foreign prisons by bailing them out or by pleading diplomatically to commute their sentences. It has even taken up cases with the International Court of Justice, ICJ, to defend its citizens.
A Death Sentence Stayed A case in point was that of Kulbhushan Jadhav, a former Indian Navy officer, abducted and taken into custody by Pakistan, on charges by Pakistan of being an Indian spy.
In March 2016, a military court in Pakistan also sentenced Jadhav to death on charges of espionage and terrorism. Indian Government went all out and moved the International Court of Justice (ICJ), The Hague, against the verdict in May 2016, after which the court stayed his execution. A final verdict in the case is still pending though as of Juy 2018.
Kulbhushan Jadhav India representing Jadhav’s Case at ICJ In a national spirit, the lawyer, Mr. Harish Salve, who fought his case at the ICJ, too charged just Re.1 for his services.
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Opening Doors To India Globally
Pravasi Bharatiya Divas As New India is firmly set to march towards progress, the Government is opening up channels for its diaspora who had to leave India in difficult times, to reestablish connect with their roots.
Through the department of Overseas Indian Affairs, the Ministry of External Affairs has been working diligently to forge reuniting bonds with the India diaspora worldwide.
Four principles of protection, welfare, proactive engagement and outreach guide the diverse programmes and schemes pertaining to Overseas Indians.
Brain Drain to Brain Gain Further, with the objective of staying in connect with those Indians who have migrated overseas post-Independence, for higher education and related opportunities, specific steps are also taken by the Government to convert “brain drain into brain gain”.
The Pravasi Bharatiya Divas platform has since 2014 become more active, purposeful and fruitful. It is being used to
Keep the diaspora posted about developments in India
Give them a chance to connect with similar Indian diaspora from other lands
Show them opportunities in which they can participate to have a stake back in their homeland.
Further, the younger generations of Indian diaspora are familiarized with their Indian roots and features of their homeland through programs such as Bharat Ko Janiye and Know India Program.
Bharat Ko Janiye As part of efforts to strengthen engagement with young overseas Indians (18-35 years of age) and encourage them to know more about their country of origin, an online "Bharat ko Janiye” Quiz has been introduced since 2015, as one of the youth oriented programs being conducted by the Ministry of External Affairs.
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This Quiz is conducted for two categories of Indian diaspora – PIOs (Persons of Indian Origin) and NRIs (Non Resident Indians).
Young PIOs and NRIs from more than 96 countries have participated enthusiastically in this Quiz so far, with the Top 10 participants in each category, NRIs and PIOs, also visiting India for the final round and for a 25-day "Bharat Ko Janiye Yatra” organized by the Ministry.
The authors of this book D.K.Hari and D.K.Hema Hari of Bharath Gyan, are proud to be have been associated with this program right from its inception in 2015.
Know India Programme Know India Programme (KIP) is a flagship initiative for Diaspora engagement, which familiarizes Indian-origin youth (18-30 years) with their Indian roots and contemporary India, through a three-week orientation programme, organized by the Ministry of External Affairs.
In 2016, the scheme was revitalized and its duration increased from 21 to 25 days, with a 10-day visit to one or two States. Preference was also accorded to PIOs from Girmitiya countries i.e generation of Indians who left the country in the middle and late 19th century to serve as labourers in the then British colonies.
A maximum of 40 Indian Diaspora youth get selected for each program and are provided full hospitality in India along with 90% of the total cost of international airfare. The program includes
Presentations on the country, its political process and developments in various sectors
Interaction with faculty and students at a prestigious University/College/Institute
Presentation on the industrial development and visits to some Industries
Visit to a village to better understand the typical village life
Visit to Agra
Visit to one or two focus states in India
Interaction with NGOs and organizations dealing with women affairs
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Visit to places of historical importance/Monuments
Taking part in Cultural programmes
Exposure to yoga
Call on high dignitaries, which may include Vice President of India, President House, Parliament, Union Ministers, Governor and Chief Ministers of partner states etc.
Bilateral Summits Likewise, the Government has identified specific countries for focus and holds annual bilateral summits with them, for instance
Indo – Japan annual meet to identify more opportunities to collaborate
Indo- China Annual Summit to work for closer cooperation to resolve some of the long standing issues between the two nations.
Home Away from Home The Ministry of External Affairs of India has taken extra steps to change the image of the Indian Embassies worldwide, into a “Home Away From Home” for the Indian diaspora overseas.
Towards this,
the officials and ambassadors in the embassies were given a “diktat” to be more compassion centric than rule centric in their transactions and interactions with the Indian diaspora
the policies and functioning of the embassies were made more people centric than Government oriented alone
informal means of access for help through Social Media in case of emergencies was encouraged
social media was also put into use to communicate alerts and advisories to the diaspora.
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All these steps gave the New India, back home, an image of a welcoming place, a warm and trustworthy place, since the signs of welcome and warmth could be felt right from the doorstep of the Indian embassies itself.
International Marriage Disputes With increased number of overseas Indians, grievances and complaints pertaining to marital issues from Indian nationals who are married to overseas Indians have also seen an increase.
The Ministry of External Affairs empowers such Indian nationals by providing them information about legal procedures to be followed in respective countries w.r.t. filing court cases, issue of summons, Look Out Circulars, revoking/impounding passports, obtaining maintenance and child support, etc.
Under a special scheme, legal and financial assistance are also provided by the Indian Government to Indian women married to overseas Indians, through lawyers and NGOs empanelled with the Indian Missions abroad.
This scheme is applicable to 13 countries and is typically resorted to, for seeking redressal from foreign courts on issues such as restoration of conjugal rights, maintenance, contesting ex-parte divorce, custody of children, abuse/ harassment by spouse etc.
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PART 6 – CHANGES IN NEW INDIA
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The Contrasts The New India, from 2014, in public perception bears many contrasts from the image of India in the previous decade and more. These evident contrasts can be summed up as follows.
Change in Functioning
CHANGE IN FUNCTIONING OF INDIA
India Prior to 2014 New India from 2014 Onwards
An era of selling India. An era of selling “idea” of India.
Power Centric Development Centric
Power Driven Governance Systems Process Driven Governance Systems
Discriminating Governance Inclusive Governance
i.e. A discriminating system for i.e. A trustworthy system for all from selected - rich, powerful or votebanks first to the last man in the nation.
Government Centric Attitude People Centric Attitude
Government as Provider – A Providing Government as Enabler – An Enabling Government Government
(Performing Government) (Performing People)
People as Beneficiary People as Stakeholder
Rights Oriented Mood Responsibility Oriented Mood
Poverty Eradication Approach of Prosperity Generation Approach of Governance Policies Governance Policies
Imitation Innovation
Psyche of a Following Nation Psyche of a Leading Nation
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Change in Image of India
CHANGE IN IMAGE OF INDIA
India Prior to 2014 New India from 2014 Onwards
Burdened with poverty. Brimming with enthusiasm.
Series of bomb blasts all over India Almost, near total absence and abrupt due to cross border terrorism halt of bomb blasts in India.
A consistent Indian stand of saying Surgical strikes to cleanse borders off “Kadi Nindan” i.e condemn strongly. terrorists.
A superficial approach. A striking difference.
Votebank Politics Development Politics
Alliances, Appeasements and Apathy Vision, Mission and Service
Leaky Benefits Transfer Direct Benefits Transfer
Known for scams being discovered at Known for schemes being the highest levels. implemented at the grass root level.
Frauds across various systems using Tightened with one Legal and National, various ids. Unique Id integrating all systems
Mired in North Indian politics Marrying North East India
Indifference by Government Quick response and turn around by Government
A Frustrated and Passive Population A Motivated and Active Population
Inward Facing with Diffidence Outward Marching with Confidence
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It is interesting that the Government has not chosen to name any of the schemes or programs after the leader, “Modi” himself.
In many ways, Prime Minister Modi's 'New India', is being held by many, as that which will actually redeem former President, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam's 'Vision 2020' for India.
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Galvanizing People – Gandhi to Modi
Mahatma Gandhi Gandhiji had galvanized the people into coming together for the freedom struggle. Before his time, it was a random, sporadic and intermittent
1. defiance of British rule or
2. fight for freedom.
What Gandhi did through his
All India Tour,
Satyagraha movement,
adopting the policy of Swadeshi and
wearing only Khadi, was to ignite the psyche of the people and turn the freedom struggle into a mass movement, at every village level.
Narendra Modi What Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been able to bring in, is the involvement of the people directly in the march towards progress of the nation.
If Mahatma Gandhi brought in public participation for freedom,
Narendra Modi has brought in public participation for progress.
Public Participation for Progress A standing example is the LPG, i.e cooking gas subsidy scheme as per which, the Government offered subsidy to all consumers of LPG.
At the same time, the Prime Minister, made an appeal to all those who could afford to buy LPG at regular market prices, to give up their subsidy so that, those monies can be utilized for providing gas subsidies to many more deserving consumers.
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By 2016, more than a Crore of well to do and middle class Indians, voluntarily had given up their gas subsidy at the request of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Modi also ensured that his personal thank you note and appreciation letter along with a certificate reached every such Indian who had given up his subsidy for the sake of his fellow citizen.
The only other time in recent memory of Independent India, when people came forward voluntarily to show solidarity and support on a mass scale, across the length and breadth of India, comparable to this people participation drive, is during the year1965.
Down History Lane to 1965 In 1965, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri, the former Prime Minister of India gave a clarion call to the people of India to show their solidarity with the armed forces of India.
India’s Prime Minister in 1965, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Firstly, Prime Minister Shastri asked people to fast for a day. But, soon this was extended by the people voluntarily, into a fast every Monday during the duration of the war.
PM Shastri also set up the National Defence Fund and approached people, requesting them to give away part of their wealth to meet the rising need for Defence equipments and facilities for the Defence forces in the wake of two consecutive wars – first with China in 1962 and then with Pakistan in 1965.
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The public responded by donating gold and other valuables, notable amongst them being Mir Osman Ali Khan, Nizam of Hyderabad, who gave away 5 tons of gold to this fund and South Indian Film actress, Mahanati Savitri, who also gave away all the jewellery that she was wearing, to this fund.
Mir Osman Ali Khan - Asif Jah VII Actress Mahanati Savitri, removing and giving away her jewels to PM Lal Bahadur Shastri Nizam of Hyderabad
The Distinguishing Aspect There have been many Relief funds set up subsequently for providing relief in case of various disasters such as Earthquakes, Tsunami, Floods or emergencies such as Kargil war etc. Many have come forward and donated to those causes generously and selflessly.
The 1965 drive and the 2016 drive stand out for how these drives took on the form of mass movements propelled by an underlying sentiment of
“Sacrifice” or “Giving up”,
vis-à-vis
“Donation” or “Charity”.
While Money, Cause and Giving, all form the common aspects in any charity drive, it is the sentiment with which the whole drive is approached, that makes some drives stand out in memory for long.
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It was after 53 years since Shastri’s times, that the nation was seeing a mass, voluntary effort in the form of
1. a nationwide response to a clarion call by the Prime Minister
2. an act driven by a sentiment of “giving up” / “giving away” as compared to “giving”.
Gandhi To Modi – Free India To New India
If Gandhi brought in a FREE INDIA,
Modi is ushering in a NEW INDIA.
A India where actions speak more than words!
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History in Making
A Time of Honesty Independence of India was fought on very ethical lines of honesty and Satyagraha.
Satya means truth.
Graha means to occupy, to take hold of. The planets are called Graha because of the particular place they occupy in space.
Satyagraha thus means to act decisively from the space of truth, from a stand of truth.
This is why, in the emblem of India, below the 4 Lions, a 24 spoked wheel called the Dharma Chakra was engraved, to stand for the values of Dharma and of all these values, Truth was chosen and the words Satyameva Jayate was inscribed below the Chakra as the motto.
Satyameva Jayate, means “Truth Alone Triumphs.” Satyameva Jayate, are the first 2 words of a mantra in the Mundaka Upanishad.
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This motto of Truth has been a timeless ethos of the land of India.
It was valid around 4000-5000 years ago, when it was composed as the Upanishad.
This motto was valid in the year 1950 CE when it was incorporated as the motto of the fledgling nation of free India.
This motto is valid and needed more so in this 21st century, the 2nd Millennium, when India has embarked on her journey to transform into a New India.
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A Window of Despair 1st couple of decades after Independence there was a sense of hope in the newly formed Independent India. There were problems but also a sense of hope.
Unfortunately the ugly sceptre of Corruption struck this land and ruled it for nearly half a century.
The hardworking, common folk of the land, the God fearing folk, the simple people – even though were honest, had no place to survive in the corruption ridden society.
A feeling of helplessness and hopelessness settled on the common man of India who wanted to lead an honest life. It soon became the norm of living in India which has continued for the last 50 years.
The Gateway To A Clean India Since 2014, India, with a new Government that came to power with a promise of making India physically and economically “clean”, has been going hammer and tongs at working towards plugging the leaks in the economic infrastructure of India.
Legalizing AADHAAR for DBT is one such major step.
Legalizing AADHAAR, besides integrating all different forms of holding identity, also paves the way for using AADHAAR as the Unique Id of every citizen of the nation.
This also gives it scope to be linked with
all tools of financial transactions Credit Cards, Bank Accounts, Mobile phones etc. as well as
all forms of financial transactions and operations such as
o Land Deals o Company Directorship o Stock Market Brokership o Investments and Insurances o MNREGA o Subsidies for Education, Farming, Housing, Medicare etc.
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For instance, complete digitisation of ration cards and linking them to Aadhaar, has helped the government weed out over 2.75 crore duplicate and bogus ration cards that were used to get highly subsidised food grains. With this, the leakage of subsidised wheat, rice and coarse grains to the tune of Rs. 17,500 crore annually has been plugged and the food grains are now reaching the real beneficiaries.
AADHAAR is still in its last leg of legalized, mandated, nationwide rollout.
Once rolled out fully, it will make it mandatory for the people and the Government to work within the rules of the nation.
A White Shift Over the last few decades it has been “guestimated” that 50 to 60% of financial transactions of India are transacted in the parallel economy, black economy world.
The legalization of AADHAAR is clearly moving all such transactions into the authorized, regulated economy – a white economy. Slowly but surely! A lot more loose ends are needed to be closed in the execution and administrative mechanisms to make this shift full and final.
This step by step, legalization and integration of AADHAAR is also a step by step chiselling away, of the parallel economy, the black money economy.
The Ray of Hope All these steps by the Government in recent times, is giving the common, honest man a sense of hope that he can start to live honestly.
Thus, these steps taken by the Government since 2014, are not just a mere implementation of a few Government regulations for an integrated system, but an answer to the hope of the bulk of the common citizens of India who want a clean, prosperous, corruption free, developed, educated India.
Their hope is not coming out of a political rhetoric but out of an initial glimpse of the actual implementation so far.
The Light At The End One of the key global indicators of a developed nation and economy are honest transactions in day to day living, at a common man level.
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For a nation to be declared “Developed”, its economy has to be declared “White” and “Clean”.
So, unless this shift is made in India and India shakes itself out of its corrupt image, it cannot hope to attain the status of a Developed Nation.
The year 2014, will go into the annals of Indian history as a milestone year when India started taking steps to move towards a “Developed” status, towards a “New India”.
A Leader At The Helm Governance is all about forming enabling policies, guidelines, protocols, frameworks and schemes after due deliberation. Once done, this forms the level playing field for the socio-political agents to take it to the population and build awareness for the entire population to use for their working, living and enjoying
for all the administrative machinery to use for overseeing and regulating the work done, wealth produced, health maintained and peace enjoyed.
Such structural changes are essential for the governance and administration of nation at regular intervals of a few decades. They require heavy investment of time, effort and money upfront but yield results surely, though slowly at start.
While in the last 3 decades or so, India has tried attempting such structural changes under the leadership of Prime Ministers such as Shri Rajiv Gandhi, Shri P.V.Narasimha Rao and Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, these attempts could not run through the full life cycle of transformation.
This was due to various reasons, right from fate, to politics, to mandate, to the sheer immensity of everything. These leaders had to operate with the disadvantages of limited mandate and a past baggage of a restricting Socialist mindset as well as a growing corrupt mentality.
It is only leaders with vision, administrative strength and mandate, who can swing such changes through. This time, the Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi, entered the scene in 2014, with all these 3 advantages and a clear idea of a “New India”.
He has since, also displayed guts, gumption and strength to carry through this much needed restructuring, inspite of obstacles and abuses i.e. gali, galore.
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Further, for embarking on such structural changes to Governance and economy in India, the need was for the right man, the right time and the right thing to do. Modi had already done something similar in Gujarat, before. He was thus an ideal choice to attempt something similar at a National level too, in 2014.
How he proved the people to be right! Shri Narendra Modi, since taking over as Prime Minister in May 2014, not only envisioned and led a successful transformation of the Governance and Economic framework, he also made a total of 42 foreign trips and led 84 delegations to a total of 52 countries until July 2018, a fact that was strongly criticized and mocked by media and opposition.
The objective of these visits abroad had been to enhance mutual understanding and to strengthen India’s relations with these countries across a wide range of sectors including trade, investment, technology, development partnership and to enhance people-to-people ties.
The expenses for all these visits had totaled to around Rs.1484 crores as made known by the Government itself. A fact, that provided the mounting criticism with a handle to cling on.
In comparison however, the proportionate amount of FDI that India had managed to raise as a result of these visits and the Make In India} initiatives that the Government had rolled out, had totalled to approximately, Rs. 15,32,157 crores upto December 2017.
This FDI funds raised was thus 1032 times the amount spent on travel.
It is something unprecented in the history of India so far!
It is now left to the people of India to use
all this Governance Infrastructure all this Development Infrastructure all the Enablement Policies and all the funds brought in to produce and trade to develop wealth and richness to learn and care to maintain health and cleanliness to love and share to secure friends and happiness.
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The year 2014, will therefore also go into the annals of Indian history as a milestone year for giving India a visionary and missionary Prime Minister who thinks, breathes, plans and acts for the sake of the people.
A true leader who dreams of a New India,
That gives All of India opportunity to make their dreams come true.
Indians are indeed at the crossroads of being part of a history-making chapter in the life of India.
Indians are on the road to creating their New India.
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Epilogue
A Growing Work
A Growing Book This book is an analysis, not from a political perspective but from the perspective of an observing, thinking and writing Indian, writing from an Indian, common-man perspective.
This book started out as a reading material for the “Bharat Ko Janiye” Quiz program, conducted by the Ministry of External Affairs as part of its Overseas Diaspora Outreach program, to reach out and educate the youth in the Indian Disapora, about the current affairs in India.
The need was to keep the Indian Diaspora abreast of the continuous developments in India as she keeps progressing. The year 2014 was chosen as the milestone year, being a turning point in the history of Indian Governance and the start of India’s journey towards a “Developed” status.
While going about collating data on the affairs in India since 2014, the initiatives taken were found to be so many in number, that it was becoming difficult to decide which to include and which to leave out, since each seemed significant in its own way.
Also, the design philosophy behind these initiatives and schemes, as well as the innovative acronyms and names chosen for them, were revealing something far bigger and grander than what their data and statistics were revealing.
The emerging picture was so grand, so positive, so encouraging and so full of promises, that it merited presentation from a wholesome perspective with context and the perceivable rationale behind it, rather than as a listing of projects with facts, data, charts and graphs alone.
It has guided the rendition of this book as a story of the transformation that India has embarked on, since 2014.
As India’s stature grows with time, this work will continue to grow too, tracking this transformation into the future of the New India.
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A Growing Government The Government, no doubt would have gone through a major architecting exercise inorder to develop these schemes and projects.
But, juxtaposing the new projects with the image of what an ideal Government should do for its people and nation, revealed the significance of these projects in the grand scheme to transform India.
A Growing Opportunity It is rare that people can get to see the transformation of a nation at work. But, here was India going through this metamorphosis and emerging out of its cocoon at a rapid pace.
This was too good an opportunity to miss, in making the youth, the future of the world, aware about how a change in Governance Infrastructure can bring about wide spread changes to a nation’s progress and image.
It was also a good opportunity to show all, what a future India might look and work like.
It was a greater opportunity to convey to them how they can grow and grow the nation too.
A Growing Initiative For all this, this book discusses only some of the major system changes introduced and changed since 2014. There are many processes, which continue to run as they were, with minimal tweaking.
Still, there was so much to cover. It is awe inspiring to see the extent of steps that a Government must take inorder to take stock, plan, work, integrate, share and communicate with the people.
A Government can never rest. It has to be keep aggregating, assessing and acting upon data and trends to ensure that the processes rolled out are effective and efficient. Else, it is back to the drawing board to refine and reform systems to allow the people to perform better.
It will only gladden all Indians to know that India definitely is on her way to peace, prosperity and abundance for all, as an influential leader of the world.
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A Giving Civilization
So Far India has been “the giving civilization” for the world, for millennia. It has been a civilization, which the world has looked up to, at all times.
1. Prior to the Dark Ages in Europe, India had shared with the world, scientific concepts from her land, along with both natural and manmade produce, unique to India and much needed in the world.
2. By the end of the Dark Ages and during Renaissance in Europe, India started sharing with the world its knowledge on maths, sciences, literature, philosophy and technology of making India’s unique products, all of which nurtured the Renaissance movement.
3. During Industrial Revolution of Europe, the wealth from India kick started the Industrial Revolution and kept its cogs and wheels turning, going around until it grew big enough and ran over the world, including India.
4. During Colonialism and the World Wars, India gave her sons to fight the wars for the British, from the frontline.
5. To end Colonialism, India gave the world, Ahimsa and Satyagraha movements, to differ and win Independence using non-violence as one of the tools of protest.
6. During Information Era, the brains from India helped keep the computers of the world busy crunching numbers, data and information.
7. Now, in the Knowledge Era, India by Transforming itself successfully, can share with the entire world, the know-how on how to transform, how to reform and how to perform as a nation for all round development – Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas.
While this may sound far-fetched, fact based details of all these contributions of India so far and potential for future, can be found in the volumes of the book “Brand Bharat” in the Autobiography of India series.
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Going Forward
The world today, has gone through various models of Governance such as
Colonialism Capitalism Fascism Marxism Communism Socialism Dictatorism Nepotism Secularism and Terrorism. Each of the “ism” has come, stayed for a while and faded away in significance.
Hopefully Terrorism will fade away soon too.
The exhausting and exhausted world will soon look for a model, driven more by humanism as well as Naturism. At this juncture, New India’s model of Governance, based on the philosophy of
“collaboration of all, for development for all” may prove to be a tested and proven alternative.
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True to its history of Giving, the New India can then share its new model of Governance which is,
“technology enabled but human centric”,
to reach out to the last citizen of the nation with what is rightfully due to him in a clean and systematic manner.
For, if not systematic and systemic, the human mind will not become free from thinking of ways to beat, bend or bypass systems for selfish, non-altruistic ends.
One has to preserve one’s mind for doing better things.
For, this Knowledge Era will also soon come to pass and it will be the Mind Era that will likely follow the Knowledge Era.
Here too, India is innately poised to share with the world, its knowledge in mind sciences and lead the world on a “mindful” path towards “humanistic” progress.
The word “Hu-man” itself is an extension of Mann, meaning “mind” in India.
India is in the process today of transforming herself into a New India.
She is like a new butterfly that is emerging from her cocoon, flapping her colourful wings, waiting to soar high and wide, taking friendship, joy and support to all across the globe.
New India is waiting to create her butterfly effect.
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