Universal maternity benefit: Govt of India allocates "fraction" of what is actually required, say experts, activists

By Our Representative
The Government of India's (GoI's) allocation of Rs 7,348 crore over the next three financial years as universal maternity entitlement has been termed as a “fraction of what is actually required”, even assuming the only two births are covered under the Maternity Benefit Programme (MBP), announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his new year speech.
Strongly objecting to the amount, officially declared by the Ministry of Women and Child Development on January 3, Jean Dreze, Belgian-born Indian development economist and activist who is known to be a top follower of Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, has said that, at the current birth rate of 20 per 1,000 in India, and the GoI's allocation “doesn't add up.”
Says Dreze, who is visiting professor at Ranchi University, the current population is around 130 crore, so the number of births per year must be around 26 million. And, if India really wishes to implement the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013, by providing Rs the benefit of Rs 6,000, allocation should be Rs 14,000 per year.
“At Rs 6,000 per birth, universal maternity entitlements (assuming, optimistically, that 10% births are already covered under the formal sector) would cost Rs 14,000 crore per year”, Dreze says.
“However”, he adds, in the plan officially released, “The Central government’s contribution for the next three financial years is only Rs 7,348 crore, or Rs 2,449 crore per year. With a 60:40 ratio for centre/state contributions, this means a total of barely Rs 4,000 crore per year.”
Dreze's objection comes close on the heels of analysts declaring (click HERE to read) that Modi’s claim of “new” maternity benefit scheme of Rs 6,000 to be transferred directly to the beneficiary was “misleading”.
“We fact-checked his claim, and found that the provision of Rs 6,000 to pregnant women already exists as part of the NFSA, 2013”, says an analysis, adding, “Therefore, his claim of the benefit being a new scheme is incorrect.”
Meanwhile, right to food activists have objected to the Ministry of Women and Child allocating only 60% per cent of the amount, leaving the rest to the states to allocate the remaining 40%.
Quoting official sources, Sejal Dand, founder-director, Area Networking and Development Initiatives (ANANDI), which has been working with rural poor women of Gujarat, says, earlier, only day to day implementation and administrative matters were to be be the responsibility of the state governments.
While starting implementation of the NFSA, 2013, a Women and Child Development letter to all state secretaries on November 13, 2013 said that the Act's provision was being extended from select 59 districts to all Indian districts, with the Centre contributing 75% and states 25%. However, on February 3, 2014, the Government of India turned it into a 100% Centrally-sponsored scheme.
Under the scheme, all pregnant women and lactating mothers, excluding the Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers who are in regular employment with Central or State governments or Public Sector Undertakings, or those who are in receipt of similar benefits under any law are eligible for the cash benefit of Rs 6,000.

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Girl child education: 20 major states 'score' better than Gujarat, says GoI report

By Rajiv Shah
A Government of India report, released last month, has suggested that “model” Gujarat has failed to make any progress vis-à-vis other states in ensuring that girls continue to remain enrolled after they leave primary schools. The report finds that, in the age group 14-17, Gujarat’s 71% girls are enrolled at the secondary and higher secondary level, which is worse than 20 out of 22 major states for which data have been made available.

Savarkar in Ahmedabad "declared support" to two-nation theory in 1937, followed by Jinnah three years later

By Our Representative
One of the top freedom fighters whom BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi revere the most, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, was also a great supporter of the two nation theory for India, one for Hindus another for Muslims, claims a new expose on the man who is also known to be the original proponent of the concept of Hindutva.

Congress 'promises' cancellation of Adani power project: Jharkhand elections

Counterview Desk
Pointing out that people's issues take a backseat in Jharkhand's 2019 assembly elections, the state's civil rights organization, the Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha, a coalition of activists and people’s organisations, has said that political parties have largely ignored in their electoral manifestos the need to implement the fifth schedule of the Constitution in a predominantly tribal district.

Hindutva founders 'borrowed' Nazi, fascist idea of one flag, one leader, one ideology

By Shamsul Islam*
With the unleashing of the reign of terror by the RSS/BJP rulers against working-class, peasant organizations, women organizations, student movements, intellectuals, writers, poets and progressive social/political activists, India also witnessed a series of resistance programmes organized by the pro-people cultural organizations in different parts of the country. My address in some of these programmes is reproduced here...
*** Before sharing my views on the tasks of artists-writers-intellectuals in the times of fascism, let me briefly define fascism and how it is different from totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is political concept, a dictatorship of an individual, family or group which prohibits opposition in any form, and exercises an extremely high degree of control over public and private life. It is also described as authoritarianism.
Whereas fascism, while retaining all these repressive characteristics, also believes in god-ordained superiority of race, cultur…

Ex-World Bank chief economist doubts spurt in India's ease of doing business rank

By Rajiv Shah
This is in continuation of my previous blog where I had quoted from a commentary which top economist Prof Kaushik Basu had written in the New York Times (NYT) a little less than a month ago, on November 6, to be exact. He recalled this article through a tweet on November 29, soon after it was made known that India's growth rate had slumped (officially!) to 4.5%.

With RSS around, does India need foreign enemy to undo its democratic-secular fabric?

By Shamsul Islam*
Many well-meaning liberal and secular political analysts are highly perturbed by sectarian policy decisions of RSS/BJP rulers led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, especially after starting his second inning. They are vocal in red-flagging lynching incidents, policies of the Modi government on Kashmir, the National Register of Citizens (NRC), the demand for 'Bharat Ratna' to Savarkar who submitted 6-7 mercy petitions to the British masters (getting remission of 40 years out of 50 years' sentence), and the murder of constitutional norms in Goa, Karnataka and now in Maharashtra.

Post-Balakot, danger that events might spiral out of control is 'greater, not less'

By Tapan Bose*
The fear of war in South Asia is increasing. Tensions are escalating between India and Pakistan after the Indian defence minister's announcement in August this year that India may revoke its current commitment to only use nuclear weapons in retaliation for a nuclear attack, known as ‘no first use’. According to some experts who are watching the situation the risk of a conflict between the two countries has never been greater since they both tested nuclear weapons in 1998.

Ships recycling Bill 'allows' India to be turned into a landfill for foreign hazardous waste

Counterview Desk
In a letter to M Venkaiah Naidu, chairman, Rajya Sabha, senior activist Gopal Krishna of the Toxics Watch Alliance has said that the Recycling of Ships Bill, 2019 should be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change to "safeguard country’s maritime environment from harmful and hazardous wastes and materials".

Worrying signs in BJP: Modi, Shah begin 'cold-shouldering' Gujarat CM, party chief

By RK Misra*
The political developments in neighbouring Maharashtra where a Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government assumed office has had a trickle down effect in Gujarat with both the ruling BJP and the Congress opposition going into revamp mode.

'Favouring' tribals and ignoring Adivasis? Behind coercion of India's aborigines

By Mohan Guruswamy*
Tribal people account for 8.2% of India’s population. They are spread over all of India’s States and Union Territories. Even so they can be broadly classified into three groupings. The first grouping consists of populations who predate the Indo-Aryan migrations. These are termed by many anthropologists as the Austro-Asiatic-speaking Australoid people.

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