SUMMIT REPORT SHRI RAM ECONOMICS SUMMIT2020 THE ECONOMICS SOCIETY, SHRI RAM COLLEGE OF COMMERCE By Jacob Walker BIGGER. BOLDER. BETTER. C O N T E N T S F E B 2 0 2 0 3 THE SWACHCH BHARAT MISSION Parameswaran Iyer & Yasmin Ali Haque 23 STATE OF INDIAN 6 JAIL ECONOMICS ECONOMY Neeraj Kumar & P. Chidambaram Sunetra Choudhury 9 BUDGET 2020-21 25 THE KEY TO SUCCESS Shiv Khera Sanjeev Sanyal & Subhash Chandra Garg 27 LIFE OF A CIVIL 12 FREE MARKETS & SERVANT LIBERAL ECONOMICS Anil Swarup Parth Shah & Rajeev Gowda 29 TWITTER SESSION 15 THE LALLANTOP Mahima Kaul, Aparajita Bharti, SHOW Anshul Tewari & Tamseel Hussain Rahul Pandita & Saurabh YOUTUBE : THE NEW Dwivedi 32 SILVER SCREEN 18 POLITICS, LAW & The Viral Fever CONSTITUION ART & CULTURE Salman Khurshid & 34 Prashant Bushan Sonal Mansingh 21 STARTUPS OF 36 CAMPUS FACE OFF BHARAT Rajdeep Sardesai Hindol Sengupta 38 DEVELOPMENTAL ECONOMICS Jean Dreze S H R I R A M E C O N O M I C S U M M I T | 2 0 2 0 PARAMESWARAN IYER & YASMIN ALI HAQUE THE SWACHH BHARAT MISSION S e s s i o n R e p o r t Changing behaviours, forever As part of the Shri Ram Economics Summit, The Economics Society, SRCC, was honoured to host a panel discussion on the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM). Moderated by Mr. Anand Narsimhan, the panel Mr. Parameshwaram Iyer, Secretary of the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Government of India, and Ms. Yasmin Ali Haque, the UNICEF Representative in India. Mr. Iyer began by presenting the book edited by him, The Swachh Bharat Revolution: The Four Pillars of India's Transformation. He then went on to describe the journey that SBM has traversed over five years since its launch, and the way it is being looked upon in the future as well. Intended to be a revolutionary behavioural change in the way people approach basic hygiene, Mr Iyer described the Swachh Bharat Movement as a revolution. He said, “It became one of India's largest and most successful behavioural change programmes because of the success it eventually met with even and especially in rural India". People started to identify and attach themselves with the program, providing the spirit of a 'Jan Andolan'. S H R I R A M E C O N O M I C S U M M I T | 2 0 2 0 However, the journey wasn’t easy. Mr. Iyer mentioned that one of the biggest hurdles that they encountered was the belief among the people that faeces were impure. This was a significant reason why people in villages were unwilling to have toilets in their houses, leading women to urinate or defecate in the open during unsafe hours at night, making it a major reason for rural rapes as well. One of the biggest focus points of the SBM has been to tackle the problem of open defecation and popularising the use of toilets in villages and rural areas for the same. Initially, increase in access and penetration into rural India was quite slow, with there being only 38% coverage for latrines in India. Under the SBM, the Prime Minister set the deadline date of 2nd October 2019, by which the goals of the movement were to be attained, including the creation of an Open Defecation Free (ODF) India. A major contributing factor to SBM's success, as highlighted by Mr. Iyer was the support of the state and the administration towards the These were referred to as the four 'S' of problems to be dealt scheme, both in terms of interest as well as finances. The with viz. Scale, Speed, Stigma, and Sustainability, and the reason being that convincing the authorities in power that solutions to these were referred to as the ABCDEF of tackling these schemes deserve to be prioritized, was a major open defecation. roadblock in bringing about any micro-level social change. The measures included: Alignment - Establishing a Mr. Iyer then went on to enumerate the primary problems congruence of goals, Believing - creating a team that believed that had not been addressed prior to the launch of the SBM. that the goal could be achieved, comprising a large youth These included the scale of the problem of open defecation, presence and cooperation from district political levels, the speed required to address the issue, the stigma around Communication - engaging with key stakeholders at political, problems relating to untreated waste, and the sustainability administrative and local levels, Democratisation - tackling of solutions like encouraging people to use toilets so as to problems at the grass root level, Evaluation - ensuring third ensure that they did not slip back. person evaluation to maintain credibility, and Following Through - keeping up with sustainability measures to prevent people from slipping back to open defecation practices. Mr. Iyer also explained the various tools used to popularise the campaign in both urban and rural India, such as advertising campaigns with celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan, the initiative of appointing 'swachhagrahis' (local representatives) who were tasked to convert other villagers, extensive use of recall value by targeting people through periodic text messages, entering into partnerships with NGOs, community based groups, media and international organisations, and the 'Swachchta Hi Seva' campaign entailing students to write letters to the Prime Minister on this issue. The impacts of the campaign have been extensive and evident. It has saved lives of children vulnerable to diarrhoea, saved money in families by reducing potential health hazards from open defecation, and contributed to facilitating a S H R I R A M E C O N O M I C S U M M I T | 2 0 2 0 significant decline in incidents of sexual violence against often been implemented hand in hand, such as in states like women and girls. The efforts started under the SBM are being Rajasthan, water supply had been offered as an incentive to followed up through measures such as Geo-tagging toilets, villages to set up toilets. Ms Yasmin also outlined the major third party evaluations and verification to ensure that ODF major problems faced by the Jal Jeevan Mission, including free areas remain so. pumping of water from sources other than groundwater, ensuring good quality and the cost of procuring clean water. An allocation of 994 cores has been made in the Union Budget for the next phase of SBM, which will focus on solid Overall, the session was very informative and offered insight and liquid waste management in villages, and on continuing into the manner in which one of the most significant the journey towards ODF. behavioural change programmes ever implemented in India was conceived and executed. Mr. Iyer and Ms. Yasmin The next topic of discussion featured another important concluded the discussion on a positive note by highlighting scheme launched by the government, the Jal Jeevan Mission, the need for continuing the 'Swachhata' consciousness by whose goal is to make drinking water accessible to every ensuring that adults serve as role models for their children household. The panel spoke of how logically, this is the next and communities as a whole, encouraging the role of children step after the SBM, because to continue the fight against in communicating the need to take cognizance of the open defecation, it is essential to ensure proper water supply problems in our world and working towards solutions for the that can keep toilets functioning. In fact, both schemes have same. S H R I R A M E C O N O M I C S U M M I T | 2 0 2 0 NEERAJ KUMAR & SUNETRA CHOUDHURY JAIL ECONOMICS S e s s i o n R e p o r t Power within prisons Under the ‘Shri Ram Economics Summit’ organised by the Economics Society, SRCC, between 4th and 6th February, Mr. Neeraj Kumar, Former Commissioner of Delhi Police and Mrs. Sunetra Choudhury, National Editor, Hindustan Times, engaged in a panel discussion on the topic ‘Jail Economics’. Ms. Sunetra started the discussion by informing the audience, much to their shock, that the prisoners who are incarcerated for more than 10 years are actually the ones running the entire prison system. Their work ranges all the way from getting the new inmates acquainted with the working of the prisons, to acting as the first line of security, in case a fight breaks out. Anything and everything is available in a jail, said Ms. Sunetra. iPhones, LCD TVs and cigarettes were some of the examples given by her. The only catch here is that the inmates have to pay multiple times the actual amount to buy it. She then talked about how the Chandra brothers, Unitech promoters who were jailed for alleged S H R I R A M E C O N O M I C S U M M I T | 2 0 2 0 The next topic of discussion was the inequalities prevalent in the Indian prison system. Ms. Sunetra talked about how there is rarely any rich person who has been hanged in the history of the Indian Judicial System. She then shared with the audience the ‘Vidya Jain murder case’ where the husband hired two contract assassins to kill his wife. In her opinion, the husband was as guilty as the contract killers but he escaped by virtue of wealth power and spent only a few years in prison, whereas the two assailants were sent to the gallows. The panel discussion was followed by an interactive Q&A session with the audience. When asked about there being a system of capitalism prevalent in the Indian Prison System, Mr.