The Quantum Hub

Authors: Aparajita Bharti and Bindushree D
Published: December 24, 2020 in the Hindustan Times

A continued focus on land and property rights is important — these cross-cutting issues not only impact the growth of India’s economy but play an important role in the lives of all Indians.

The year 2020 drew sharp focus to land and property rights issues in India. The year began with protests against the National Register of Citizens (NRC), which — if implemented — would have relied on citizens having their land records in place to prove citizenship. Many commentators lamented how landless migrant labour would meet these stringent requirements in a country where land records management is in an abysmal shape with limited digitisation.

With the onset of the pandemic, and India going into an unprecedented lockdown, the shocking sight of migrant labourers walking the highways for days exposed the lack of inclusive housing in our cities. They were forced to leave cities not only due to the lack of affordable housing, but also because informal rent agreements enabled abrupt evictions. While many developed countries enforced rent moratoriums and protections against evictions, in India, authorities could not create such a safety net. Informal tenancy in urban and semi-urban India and landlessness in rural India plunged the most vulnerable populations into further despair.

Lockdowns across the world also forced businesses to consider diversification of their supply chains. This turned the attention of policymakers to the ease of doing business to make India an attractive destination for companies looking to invest in new locations. Again, land reforms became a central part of this conversation. While the central government explored the idea of creating land banks, some states focused on structural reforms. Karnataka amended laws to remove restrictions on buying and selling of agricultural land by non-agriculturalists.

Other developments that brought focus to property rights include the SVAMITVA (Survey of villages and mapping with improvised technology in village areas) scheme launched in April 2020. The scheme aims to survey non-agricultural inhabited land in rural India. The stated goals are connecting rural Indians with institutional credit through better property records, and empowering Panchayati Raj institutions through property tax collection.

In October 2020, in response to the migrant crisis, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs announced the Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (ARHCs) Scheme. The scheme aims to fill the affordable housing gap in cities by utilising government-funded vacant houses along with construction, operation and maintenance of new affordable housing projects by private players.

In an unrelated development, the Supreme Court passed a landmark judgement; it ruled that daughters have equal coparcenary rights in Hindu Undivided Family properties, even if the father died before the enactment of the 2005 Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act. Gender activists celebrated the judgment as this ambiguity had presented a big hurdle for women across India in accessing their property rights.

Though these developments seem disparate, it is worth noting that land and property rights dominated people’s lives and public narrative even in an extraordinary year such as 2020. The year highlighted the fault lines in our land governance and exacerbated the effect of existing inefficiencies in our system.

As we look to kickstart recovery in 2021, one hopes that policymakers will retain focus on making land records services citizen-friendly, undertaking surveys of previously unsurveyed areas, improving land markets and continuing to invest in affordable housing in our urban centres. Presently, there are interesting policy proposals under discussion to achieve these goals. Apart from ARHC and SVAMTIVA that may be scaled up, a Model Tenancy Act aimed at bridging the trust deficit between tenants and landlords is under consideration. The Centre and states are mulling subsidies in stamp duty rates to boost the real estate market and property registration. Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are making huge investments in new surveys and technology to improve land governance.

A continued focus on land and property rights is important — these cross-cutting issues not only impact the growth of India’s economy but play an important role in the lives of all Indians. Among other things, 2020 has also been a stark reminder that governments must prioritise securing land and property rights for all its citizens.

Authors: Rohit Kumar and Sneha Narayana Pillai
Published: February 05, 2021 in the India Development Review

To make substantial strides in women’s economic empowerment, it is clear that a gender lens needs to be incorporated at every stage—from policy design to data collection for monitoring and evaluation.

In the year 1990, renowned economist Amartya Sen shared with the world an intriguing phenomenon he had come to observe, about the 100 odd million women who were simply ‘missing’. In an essay for The New York Times, he wrote, “These numbers tell us, quietly, a terrible story of inequality and neglect leading to the excess mortality of women.” Exacerbating this phenomenon, he noted, were a myriad of social, cultural, and economic factors, including poor access to education, nutrition, health, and economic rights (including property rights). Thirty years later, the UNFPA’s State of the World Population Report 2020 estimates that India accounts for 45.8 million of the world’s 142.6 million missing women.

Research suggests that investing in Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) has important linkages with gender equality. As a result, India has witnessed several schemes and progressive legislation—both at the central and state levels—that aim to empower women and increase their participation in the economy. However, despite the government’s targeted efforts, India has had limited success. The Global Gender Gap Report 2020 has ranked India among the five worst countries in the ‘Economic Participation and Opportunity’ index.

The COVID-19 pandemic has only heightened this gendered vulnerability. National Sample Surveys’ data reveals that the Female Labour Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) has been in decline in rural areas, and has remained stagnant in urban areas since the late 1980s. Similarly, a close look at this data by the Initiative for What Works to Advance Women and Girls in the Economy (IWWAGE) finds that despite the priority accorded to skilling programmes by the government, less than two percent of women received formal training in 2017-18. But even as 84 percent of formally trained men joined the labour force, less than half of the trained women did so.

There are several reasons that can explain why WEE policies in India may not have had the anticipated impact. However, in the absence of rigorous evaluations of government schemes and policies, evidence remains thin and fragmented. As a first step to addressing the problem, The Quantum Hub (TQH), where we work, has undertaken an exercise to map the landscape of policies and synthesise all available evidence. Additionally, we also undertook a design analysis of some prominent interventions to identify patterns in shortcomings and opportunities, if any. Our hope is that learnings from this exercise will facilitate decision-making until such time when rigorous evidence becomes available, especially since many of these interventions are supported by substantial budgetary commitments.

The approach

The landscape of policies relating to WEE is vast and cross-cutting, and therefore we adopted a clear methodological approach to go about the exercise. We adapted the Longwe Gender Analysis Framework, which uses a progressive hierarchy to measure women’s empowerment. We supplemented this with policy lenses (alignment of incentives of stakeholders and state capacity required for implementation) to understand each policy’s likely effectiveness. These lenses were then used to assess policies and schemes across the core areas for WEE identified by the Overseas Development Institute–collective action, unpaid work, skill development, quality work, social protection, access to property and assets, and financial inclusion.

Well-intentioned schemes, with some unintended consequences

When it comes to policy, it is inevitable that some schemes, no matter how well-intentioned, can have an underwhelming impact, and at times may even contribute to unforeseen adverse effects. Consider the case of the 2017 amendment to the Maternity Benefits Act, 1961. The amendments attempted to boost female workforce participation by increasing maternity leave for working women in the formal sector from 12 weeks to 26 weeks. A 2018 report by TeamLease Services noted that though this amendment may have positive outcomes in the long-term, in the short-term it was likely to deter the hiring of women, and could affect a net job loss for 11-18 lakh women in the first year.

New research by TeamLease confirms that the amendment is yet to show positive outcomes for women’s labour force participation. Many countries in the developed world rely on a mix of maternity and paternity leave and social security support to alleviate this problem, and to align incentives of the employers with the broader objective of supporting women in infant care. Unfortunately, this has not been done in the Indian context.

Another example is the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana that aimed to increase the uptake of clean fuel by subsidising LPG. While the scheme consistently achieved its target in terms of LPG connections, a study by the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics found that it has not been as successful in its primary objective of displacing the use of firewood. Reasons for this range from the unaffordable cost of refills to a gendered bias due to which women are reluctant to spend on their own well-being. Reconsidering pricing and disbursal mechanisms in the design of the scheme, while also increasing distributor incentives to reach remote areas, may have improved overall outcomes.

Implementation-intensive design lowers efficiency

In our analysis, we noticed that policies which are implementation-intensive, such as those that require local discretion and extensive monitoring and/or reporting are likely to suffer from inefficient implementation as well as leakages. A case in point is the Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency (MUDRA) scheme which aims to enhance lending for small businesses, with special incentives to lend to women entrepreneurs. The scheme is implementation-intensive and requires officials in financial intermediaries such as banks to take decisions on disbursement of loans to beneficiaries with limited credit histories, assess business plans for risk, and closely monitor the use of approved loans. These aspects can be administratively difficult, especially in the context of smaller loans. Some commentators have argued that the MUDRA scheme has not been very successful in increasing access to credit; instead, financial intermediaries have simply reclassified existing loans under different MUDRA categories to meet targets.

This is not to say that all implementation-intensive policies are problematic. Schemes such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) that require higher state capacity for implementation still perform reasonably well, because the incentives of stakeholders are better aligned. Under MUDRA, given high transaction costs and potential credit risk, the incentives for financial intermediaries to push MUDRA loans may not be adequately aligned.

The missing lens in policy design

Certain schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) which aims to upskill young adults to make them job-ready have prominent gaps in their design, owing to a missing gendered perspective. The PMKVY, for instance, does not factor in the unique issues faced by women. An important reason why skilling programmes often do not work for women is the lack of flexibility in schedule, lack of crèche facilities, concerns regarding safety, and inadequate support in terms of counselling and placement. Stereotyping of the skills offered to women results in further occupational segregation. Policies that allow for credit transfers and induct more female teachers, especially in courses traditionally considered unsuitable for women, can make a difference.

Contrast this with a scheme such as NREGA. It reinforces the concept of gender parity by making a deliberate choice to allocate at least one-third of the total workdays to women, provisioning for worksites near places of residence, and by ensuring uniformity in wages between men and women. As a result, women’s participation in this scheme has been consistently higher than that of men.

A similar gender lens is also much-needed in data collection, where the lack of disaggregated data on scheme implementation has made it harder to understand the impact of policies on women. For instance, in the case of a gender-neutral scheme like Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY), which was launched in 2018, gender-disaggregated data was not available until 2020. Consequently, it was impossible to understand how effective the scheme was in providing affordable healthcare to women or in addressing women-specific medical conditions. A gender study on PM-JAY published in 2020 by the National Health Authority noted that, “Out of total 50 top procedures from top 10 specialities (excluding obstetrics and gynaecology as they are utilised by females only), percentage utilisation is higher for males in 60 percent procedures, and 32 percent procedures are utilised more by females,” thus revealing a gender gap in the utilisation of the scheme. Gender disaggregated evidence is a critical marker for the responsible ministry to undertake corrective measures to make the beneficiary base as inclusive as possible.

What works for women’s economic empowerment?

Several studies have noted that one of the more successful schemes targeting women’s empowerment is the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM). This scheme has been instrumental in creating self-help groups (SHGs) and has helped empower women at the grassroots, both socially and economically through collective action, especially during crises such as the recent pandemic. By bringing women from poor families into the SHG network, NRLM has empowered them with opportunities for employment or self-employment and access to finance. These community-level institutions have also helped in creating sensitive support structures right up to the block level, with women members often assisting each other with issues such as domestic violence, financial savings, skilling, and participation in local governance. Through the experience of NRLM, it is evident that collective action schemes can play a vital role in women’s empowerment as numerous other interventions can also piggyback on SHGs.

The Indian Stamp Act, 1899 is another example that stands out. Under this act, many state governments have reduced stamp duty applicable on property held by women, thereby incentivising the family to register the property in the name of women. As a policy intervention, it is also relatively simpler to implement, which makes it work well for WEE.

The way ahead

To make substantial strides in women’s economic empowerment, it is clear that a gender lens needs to be incorporated at every stage—from policy design to data collection for monitoring and evaluation. A stronger focus on policies where stakeholders’ incentives are aligned and those that impose lesser demands on state capacity, while giving greater visibility to women in decision-making can lead to better outcomes. Every policy that does not take into account these lenses is a lost opportunity to address the barriers that impact women’s economic empowerment; a lost opportunity to stop women from going ‘missing’.

Authors: Deepro Guha and Soumya Kapoor Mehta
Published: February 14, 2021 in the Economic Times ETHRWorld

While the need for a centrally administered UEGS has been acknowledged by the central Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, funds availability remains a constraint.

The pandemic and subsequent lockdown measures have taken a toll on all aspects of life in India, particularly employment. Over 21 million salaried jobs have been lost between April and August 2020 and urban unemployment is as high as 7.5 percent as of October 25, 2020. Job losses also seem to have affected women disproportionately. Reports show that the number of men who reported themselves as employed dropped by 29 percent between March 2020 and April 2020, while for women the change was much greater at 39 percent.

Given the gloomy prospects induced by the pandemic, leading policy experts have urged the government to step in and ensure some semblance of livelihood guarantee in urban areas, as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) does for rural areas.

Advocates for an urban employment guarantee scheme (UEGS) argue that such a scheme would provide multiple benefits and alleviation measures during a crisis such as now. First, it would provide livelihood options to over 7 percent unemployed persons in urban areas.

Second, an urban employment guarantee scheme may provide an opportunity to increase female labour force participation rates (FLFPR) in urban areas, much like it has in rural areas. Close to 50 percent (or more) workers under MGNREGA are women, who participate in the scheme on account of factors like insufficient agriculture work, migration of men to cities, lack of skills to do other work, illiteracy, or the availability of wages higher than other available options in rural areas.

Third, the works undertaken under the UEGS may create assets that improve the town’s ecology and quality of public services, which have a direct impact on productivity and quality of life.

Recognizing the need to provide livelihood support in urban areas, various state governments have stepped in with their own urban employment guarantee schemes. For example, Odisha, Himachal Pradesh, and Jharkhand have announced their own urban employment schemes after the onset of the Coronavirus epidemic. Apart from these states, Kerala has an existing Ayyankali Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme (AUEGS). The AUEGS has been successful in creating work opportunities for women, with 80,735 and 96,259 women benefiting from the scheme in 2018-19 and 2019-20 respectively.

There are also global experiences to draw from: Argentina introduced Plan Jefes, in response to its 2001 currency crisis, which offered voluntary job opportunities to unemployed heads of households in community projects; the programme specifically targeted women. South Africa implemented its Expanded Public Works Programme in 2004 which created paid work opportunities for large numbers of unemployed people, primarily women and youth; the programme, interestingly focused on developing home-based care and early childhood development centres in communities, services that women benefit from as well as run themselves.

However, while the need for a centrally administered UEGS has been acknowledged by the central Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, fund availability remains a constraint.

Designing an urban employment guarantee scheme with a gender lens

Based on state level and global experiences, we outline a few principles that may be followed if the UEGS were to be implemented to the maximum benefit of women in urban areas.

First, the nature of jobs provided under the scheme should be acceptable as much to women as to men, as well as should take into account the aspirations of the urban women. It is important for policymakers to consider that women residing in urban India, may have different aspirations than women in rural areas who avail MGNREGA wages. This could be achieved by providing for a list of work appropriate for women as well as a list of community assets that reduce gender vulnerabilities, e.g., community sanitation facilities, planting of trees near slums for shade, assistance in healthcare/educational facilities, running of community kitchens etc.

Second, distance to the workplace is a critical factor for women in urban areas in deciding whether to take up a job. Therefore, jobs under any urban guarantee scheme should be available around the city so that women can avail work at a place near their residence.

Third, equal wages as those promised to men is one of the key reasons that attracts women workers to MGNREGA works, and should be provided for even under a proposed UEGS. This can be achieved through publication of standard rates for jobs offered under the scheme.

Fourth, various studies have shown that women prefer forms of employment that allow them more flexibility at work as they juggle paid work and unpaid work during a given day. Experts, therefore, suggest including elements of a gig economy model in the UEGS, giving flexibility to women to work certain number of days per week or getting remunerated for the number of jobs done rather than being paid on a per day basis.

Fifth, proper worksite facilities such as availability of potable drinking water, first-aid services, child care facilities, shade facilities, toilets etc should be ensured. Worksite managers/organisations should also be mandated to ensure strict implementation of the prevention of sexual harassment (POSH) guidelines.

A well-designed scheme that uses a gender lens from the outset can not only reduce the immediate problem of unemployment in urban areas but can also (potentially) revive the stagnant and abysmally low FLFPR in urban areas, which has been a long-standing worry for India.

—
Soumya Kapoor Mehta is the Head of the Initiative for What Works to Advance Women and Girls in the Economy (IWWAGE), an initiative of LEAD at Krea University; and Deepro Guha is a Manager at The Quantum Hub (TQH), a policy research and communications firm.

Author: Sneha Narayana Pillai
Published: May 10, 2021 in the Indian Express

More women are voting than before, and this rise in political agency could mean that their rights and issues are no longer an afterthought for policymakers.

The results of the assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal have made one point clear – the rising significance of women’s role in shaping political outcomes. High voter turnout was noted among women across all states, with women voters exceeding men in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Political commentators as well as several exit polls have noted the influence of women voters in determining the performances of parties across states in these assembly elections; a phenomenon that has been increasingly observed in the last decade. For instance, Himanta Biswa Sarma, now chief minister of Assam, has publicly said that they owe their victory to the women voters. In West Bengal as well, many commentators have credited high women turnout for the victory of Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress.

Most leading parties, cognisant of the power of the female vote, had also tailored their political campaigns and election manifestos to speak to the needs of women in these states, with poll promises including financial assistance to homemakers and women-led households.

From a monthly stipend of Rs 500 being promised for female heads of a family by the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, to a monthly “value rights assistance” of Rs 3,000 promised to homemakers in Tamil Nadu by the Kamal Haasan-led Makkal Needhi Maiam, the amounts varied, but the target beneficiaries remained the same across the states.

Free and subsidised transport for women, free home appliances, increase in maternity benefits, reservation for women in government jobs were some of the other electoral promises made in a bid to win women’s votes. However, even as these women-centred promises did not lead to a higher representation of women in candidate lists, especially in states like Assam and Tamil Nadu, there are several reasons why the rise of the “female voting bloc” is remarkable.

Studies by various organisations have shown that men and women vote quite differently, with women more likely to vote for change and prefer a welfare-oriented party, prioritising access to basic provisions such as healthcare, water and sanitation, while men lean towards infrastructural investment.

This was also observed during the victory of the Aam Aadmi Party during the 2020 elections in New Delhi, with exit polls noting that the party was the preferred choice among women voters, who found schemes such as free bus rides, subsidised water and electricity to be politically relevant. This trend has also previously been observed during Jayalalithaa’s victory in Tamil Nadu in 2016 and Nitish Kumar’s return to power in Bihar in 2015, among others.

Over the last few years, the gender gap in voter turnout has reduced significantly. While men held an 8.4 percentage-point turnout advantage over women in national elections in 2004, within a decade, that gap had shrunk to just 1.8 percentage points.

Based on a close look at the gender-wise voting choices in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, LiveMint observed that female voters were likely to prefer women-led parties. In the long term, as women emerge as an even stronger voting bloc, it could also encourage parties to field more female candidates and ensure better political representation among women.

It would be naive to think of the female voting bloc as a homogenous group who care about the same issues. Women in India, much like everyone else, continue to vote on the basis of other identities, including caste, religion, etc., but given their similar lived experiences, there are certain considerations (some of which have been discussed above) that shape the way they vote.

The hope is that with the recent trend of catering to the female voting bloc, that political parties across the spectrum become more gender-responsive, ultimately leading to policy changes that improve the lives of women.

This is of particular significance in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, where it’s widely observed that the impact of the pandemic has been the harshest on women. In a bid to reach out to the female voting bloc, all political parties attuned themselves to such gendered disparities and it is hoped that they will follow through their election promises, to provide extra support to women to tide through this crisis.

In the current scenario, where a gender gap continues to exist in most spheres in India, ranging from digital access to labour force participation, there’s hope that with the increasing recognition of the power of the female voting bloc, women’s interests will no longer an afterthought in policymaking; taking us closer to realising the objectives of the early suffragists.

Author: Mayank Mishra
Published: February 01, 2021 in the Financial Express

The rationale for government intervention seems unclear and needs further debate. Even if there are positive externalities to some data, there seem to be significant potential costs for the whole digital economy under the NPD framework.

With the exponential rise in the use of data by businesses, several regulatory challenges have emerged. Issues pertaining to data sharing pose some of the biggest challenges. In July 2020, the MeitY released a report on non-personal data (NPD) governance framework with an aim to promote data sharing by businesses for public welfare. It intends to regulate data sharing so that the benefits accrue to India, its communities and businesses. While the purpose of data sharing for public welfare is commendable, the suggestions made to govern NPD were met with widespread disapproval from many stakeholders. It was noted that the framework was wide-ranging in its recommendations which could be misused against larger data businesses.

Taking into account the feedback from the first report, the government released a second version in December 2020. While it brings more clarity, there are still issues that need serious attention.

Analysing the government’s decision to intervene: Economic theory states that a government should only intervene in economy when there is market failure, i.e. when the forces of demand and supply do not lead to an efficient outcome. The market failure that the government envisages in the case of NPD is positive externalities associated with sharing of data. According to this rationale, the data collected by a firm can benefit firms and communities beyond the one that collected it. The committee has given many examples, such as road data collected by cab aggregators, which can be used by municipal bodies to improve road design, or cancer hospitals sharing their data for medical research. However, while there are benefits of sharing data with the community, there are also potential costs and risks.

Potential impact of the NPD framework on firms: Firms that invest in collecting data incur a significant cost in doing so. The cost is incurred in order to reap future revenue by providing innovative products and services, enhanced user experience or efficient operations of firms. The data collected, in effect, gives competitive advantage to a market player compared to its competitors. However, if the proposed NPD framework is implemented, a business can potentially lose its competitive advantage if its data could be accessed by its competitors through data trustees. This could disincentivise businesses to collect data in the future, thereby hampering the data economy. Unlike the popular adage ‘data is the new oil’, data doesn’t exist naturally. Datasets are built over time through conscious efforts of companies collecting data. Therefore, by destroying the incentive to collect data, we risk defeating the whole purpose of this framework.

The rationale for government intervention seems unclear and needs further debate. Even if there are positive externalities to some data, there seem to be significant potential costs for the whole digital economy under the NPD framework. The government, therefore, needs to do a thorough cost-benefit analysis of the framework and implement it only where it establishes that benefits outweigh the costs.

Finally, apart from distorting the market, the NPD framework could lead to negative externalities by compromising the privacy of the individuals. While the framework specifies that only anonymised, non-personal data can be shared through data trustees, there still remains a possibility that data is de-anonymised by an entity, thus revealing personal information. Further, under this framework, once the datasets are amalgamated in HVDs with different data trustees, it will be extremely difficult to track and control downstream usage of these datasets. Experts suggest that by triangulating different datasets, there is a high risk of identification of individuals and groups of individuals. Once a dataset is shared outside of the purpose for which it was originally collected, it is almost impossible for any regulator to control its end-usage. It can be argued that while Indian policymakers, on one side, are proposing purpose limitation and progressive rights for individuals under the PDP Bill, we are, in fact, risking diluting those protections through forced non-personal data sharing.

Owing to the myriads of issues with the NPD framework, the government should tread cautiously in regulating such a fast-moving and dynamic field. We risk stifling the digital economy by fighting too many battles together. Privacy and innovation should continue to be core goals for regulation of the digital economy, compulsory sharing of NPD is a potential affront to both.

Authors: Nikhil Iyer and Aparajita Bharti
Published: March 08, 2021 in the Hindu Business Line

India’s privacy law must balance the rights of children with online safety

The Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill, 2019, is expected to submit its report soon. Among other things, observers will keenly follow the Committee’s discussion around children’s personal data. Currently, the Bill imposes a blanket requirement for parental consent for processing the personal data of anyone below the age of 18. In effect, children’s access to online social media, ed-tech platforms, forums for personal interest and development, gaming and so on will be governed by this provision.

While the necessity to protect the interests of children online is a foregone conclusion, the challenge is to do so while respecting their autonomy. The blanket provision in the PDP Bill assumes similar maturity for all children under 18. The Bill inks them as incapable of understanding the risks, benefits and other consequences associated with their online activities.

In contrast, in the offline world, the law variously acknowledges that maturity changes over time. Under India’s criminal law, those below age 12 are deemed incapable of giving informed consent, whereas the maturity of those between ages 12 and 18 is decided by a court of law. Even the laws on child labour allow children under 14 to work autonomously in non-hazardous industries. However, according to the PDP Bill, the same children cannot sign up for online jobs without parental consent. Even a rigorous law such as the Juvenile Justice Act now recognises the difference in maturity among teenagers in different age groups.

This dichotomy between the offline and the online world is especially problematic given the number of Indian teenagers on the internet today. India has one of the largest numbers of active internet users anywhere in the world. Out of an estimated 504 million internet users, nearly one-third are aged under 19. As per the Annual Status on Education Report (ASER) 2020, more than one-third of all schoolchildren are pursuing digital education, either through online classes or recorded videos. Given the ubiquitous reliance on the internet through the pandemic for education, more students have likely come online in the past year.

The implications of these trends on the PDP Bill’s mandate are worth evaluating. To consent on behalf of the child, parents need to be aware of all online activities that the child engages in, even as the child may be digitally more literate and tech-savvy than them. This problem is exacerbated in families of children who are first-generation learners. There is also a huge risk of a chilling effect as the requirement of parental consent inhibits the ability of the child to use the internet as a medium of ‘self-expression, growth and education’. Children are likelier to worry about their right to privacy being infringed by their parents or peers, than by the State or commercial actors.

This is especially so as the child seeks to find an outlet for aspects of their personality that do not find an immediate audience due to social taboos. These may be on questions of sexual orientation, religion and other sensitive issues.

Further, the blanket provision may put Indian children at a comparative disadvantage as compared to their peers in other countries. In the UK and the US, parental consent is needed for those below age 13, while in China this threshold is at age 14. In the EU, this threshold is at age 16, with an option for member states to reduce it to age 13.

Adolescents in these countries will be freely able to use the internet to learn about opportunities, socialise, hone their skills and so on, while those in India will be singularly reliant on their parents to facilitate this. It is highly unlikely that all parents have the ability to fulfil this role proactively.

Instead of strict age-gating provisions, we must update our school curriculum to equip children to keep themselves safe online. One’s relationship with technology is one of themost inalienable aspects of our life today, therefore at every age, children, even those below the age of 13 must be exposed to the potential harms online. We should not only make them aware about the obvious harms on the internet such as phishing, identity or data theft, but also expose them to technology-enabled conundrums that we are dealing with as a society today, such as echo chambers, fake news and the risk of profiling for political gains. Just as we teach students good touch and bad touch to defend themselves in the physical world, we must equip them to make their decisions in the online space.

The question of how children’s maturity could be ascertained and parental consent be verified is gaining traction in other countries. In India, too, the blanket requirement for parental consent for those aged below 18 years must make way for a graded approach along with a comprehensive digital literacy curriculum. In adopting such an approach, we will bring India’s children on a parwith their global peers, and account for internet-based opportunities for their development.

Author: Rohit Kumar
Published: December 09, 2020 in the Indian Express

India does not spend enough on its young people. It is their opportunities that have been constricted the most by the pandemic.

For an economy ravaged by the pandemic, the 2021 budget is going to be of critical importance. The spread of coronavirus and the uncertainty around its containment has affected the revival of economic activity and disrupted labour markets. Unemployment is at a high of 7.8 per cent in November with youth unemployment exceeding 20 per cent. Educational institutions have not convened physical classes in over 8 months and vocational education/skilling opportunities have gone defunct. No wonder then that these issues have taken centre stage in policy discourse and become key rallying points in elections — the mobilisation around jobs, skilling and social security in Bihar elections is a case in point. The youth, in particular, has been at the forefront of this mobilisation. It is their opportunities and life chances that have been constricted the most by this pandemic.

If anything, the pandemic has highlighted the need to build the resilience of the youth and to place their concerns at the centre stage of policy discussions.

While the government has taken several measures over the last year to address some of these challenges, a lot remains to be done. The pandemic is still far from over and India’s institutional focus on its youth has always been relatively weak. An analysis of the last five Union budgets shows that India spends less than 4 per cent of its annual budget on youth-focused schemes, and the proportion of funding allocated to these schemes has declined in recent years. This is despite the fact that India is home to one of the youngest populations in the world; more than a third of India’s population will be in the age group of 10-34 by the next year.

The spending on higher education has been concentrated in highly selective autonomous institutes, such as IITs and IISc, while that for skilling and vocational education has contracted over the last five years. This is odd given that the government has been focusing on bridging the skill gap in India. Only a small percentage of young people in India pursue degrees in higher education, and a minuscule number get to enrol in prestigious colleges and universities. Most either drop out and enter the labour market directly or look to pursue vocational education/skilling programmes to up-skill themselves for the job market. Government estimates suggest that we need to up-skill upwards of 300 million youngsters to make sure they are gainfully employed. Yet, India’s biggest skilling programme, PMKVY (Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana) with an average annual budget of Rs 3,000 crore aims to skill only 10 million individuals over 2016-2020. The problem is compounded by an overall decline in the skilling budget across ministries. After PMKVY, DDUGKY (Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana) under the National Rural Livelihood Mission is another flagship skilling scheme, but with a much smaller budget — the spending on this scheme has been below Rs 100 crore over the past few years.

While there is a focus on increasing job opportunities for young people by incentivising investments in industry and new enterprises, data suggests that the increase in jobs has not kept pace with the growth of the economy. The Union budget’s focus on employment programmes — specifically those that match young people to opportunities is also very narrow, and most programmes tasked with enabling employment have seen limited success.

Another concern with budgetary priorities is the lack of focus on other areas that affect young people. For instance, the focus on sports and sports infrastructure remains weak and despite the fact that mental health concerns continue to affect young adults in India, an issue that has gained greater prominence during the pandemic, there is no large-scale focused programme to address this problem. The only outlay towards mental health is in the form of disbursals to autonomous institutes such as the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuroscience, Bangalore. In fact, the total outlay towards such autonomous institutes in the 2020-21 budget is only Rs 488 crore. This too, and understandably so, is not focused on the youth.

If anything, the pandemic has highlighted the need to build the resilience of the youth and to place their concerns at the centre stage of policy discussions.

India is one of the youngest countries in the world and if we wish to leverage the power of this young population, and support it through the pressures of the pandemic, there needs to be a strong and concerted effort towards youth-focused interventions. Though there are a wide variety of schemes and initiatives in the government’s policy arsenal, a strong focus on the youth seems to be missing. The allocations specifically meant for youth are concentrated in areas of education and employment, with not enough focus on other critical areas such as mental health or leadership. But even where we do spend on youth, our allocations pale in comparison to the size of this demographic. The upcoming budget is a small window of opportunity to bring focus to this segment and to bridge the chasm that has crept in in terms of access to opportunity due to the pandemic.

Authors: Rohit Kumar and Bhavani Pasumarthi
Published: March 26, 2021 in the Hindustan Times

India’s Parliament recently passed the National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill, 2021, which significantly increases the powers of the Lieutenant-Governor (L-G) of Delhi. The bill requires the elected Delhi government to seek the opinion of the L-G before taking executive action. This is a major amendment that significantly alters the way the government in Delhi functions. It also recasts India’s federal construct and makes the Centre even more powerful than it already is, while chipping away at the power from the duly elected government in Delhi.

Despite the nature of the sweeping changes this bill proposed, it was not sent to a parliamentary committee, and there was no formal consultation with stakeholders, civil society, or experts before it was quickly rushed through both Houses of Parliament. The bill, first reported by media early this month, was introduced in the Lok Sabha on March 15 and passed by both Houses by March 24. Even before citizens had any time to absorb its implications or make up their mind, the bill was already on its way to becoming law.

“Mandating scrutiny for every bill passed is not a big ask. It is necessary to uphold the quality of legislation, and by extension, the quality of governance. A strong committee system is probably the only way to ensure Parliament’s relevance in the law-making process.”

For a parliamentary democracy, this is unusual. Typically, bills of such significance are sent to parliamentary committees for closer scrutiny. Unfortunately, sidelining committees is increasingly becoming the norm in India. Over the last few years, Parliament has been sending fewer and fewer bills to committees. Data compiled by PRS Legislative Research shows that only 25% bills were referred to committees in the 16th Lok Sabha (2014-2019) as compared to 60% in the 14th (2004-2009) and 71% in the 15th Lok Sabha (2009-14).

This trend is worrying. In the constitutional scheme of things, Parliament is supposed to maintain oversight on the government and keep its power in check. By circumventing due diligence in Parliament, we run the risk of weakening democracy.

While fewer bills have been going to committees, data also shows that Parliament has been working more in recent years, discussing bills for longer durations and passing more bills than before. The 16th Lok Sabha (2014-19) for instance, worked for over 1,615 hours, 20% more than the previous Lok Sabha, and passed 133 bills, 15% more than the 15th Lok Sabha. Interestingly, even in the case of the NCT amendment, the Rajya Sabha stayed back till 9:30 pm to finish its deliberations and pass the bill before adjourning.

So, if Members of Parliament (MPs) are spending more time on direct deliberations on the floor of the House, why is bypassing committees a cause of worry?

Spending more time on direct discussions is not a substitute for committee deliberations. There is rarely enough time for a thorough analysis of any legislation on the floor of Parliament. Most MPs are also not subject matter experts on the topics being discussed — they are generalists who understand the pulse of the people but rely on advice from experts and stakeholders before taking decisions. What committees are meant to do is help MPs seek expertise and give them time to think about issues in detail. This is why the committee system was expanded in 1993.

Today, we have several committees in Parliament — each dealing with a different subject matter. All committees have MPs representing different parties, in roughly the same proportion as their strength in Parliament. When bills are referred to these committees, they are examined closely and inputs are sought from various external stakeholders, including the public. By virtue of being closed-door and away from the public eye, discussions in committee meetings are also more collaborative, with MPs feeling less pressured to posture for media galleries.

Although committee recommendations are not binding on the government, their reports create a public record of the consultations that took place and put pressure on the government to reconsider its stand on debatable provisions. The Companies Bill, 2009, is an example of a legislation that was withdrawn, and later reintroduced with significant changes, due to the issues flagged by the committee that examined it.

In the Indian system, unfortunately, it is not mandatory for bills to be sent to committees. It’s left to the discretion of the Chair — the Speaker in the Lok Sabha and Chairperson in the Rajya Sabha. In countries such as Sweden and Finland, all bills are sent to committees. In Australia, a selection of bills committee, which includes members from the Opposition, is tasked with identifying the bills that should go to committees.

It is perhaps time for India to mandate a similar requirement to avail the benefits of the committee system that we have taken for granted so far. By giving discretionary power to the Chair, the system has been especially rendered weak in a Lok Sabha where the ruling party has a brute majority.

Mandating scrutiny for every bill passed is not a big ask. It is necessary to uphold the quality of legislation, and by extension, the quality of governance in the country. A strong committee system is probably the only way to ensure Parliament’s relevance in the law-making process.

Author: Shivani Gupta
Published: April 21, 2021 in the Hindustan Times

The Survey of Villages Abadi and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas or Svamitva scheme, launched in April 2020, can play a key role in ensuring secure property rights for rural India. The scheme aims to provide an integrated property validation solution for rural India through the demarcation of inhabited areas using drones. By providing a Record of Rights (RoRs) to village household owners in inhabited rural areas, it attempts to create accurate land and property records, which can be pivotal in reducing property-related disputes and facilitating monetisation of rural residential assets for credit and other financial services. By providing clear records of land ownership, it also envisages improved tax collection through the gram panchayat institutions. As of March, drone survey has been completed in over 31,000 villages, and property cards distributed to about 230,000 property holders in 2,626 villages.

But the scheme’s legal, social and economic design needs more thought. One, property cards distributed under the scheme need legal validity in order to enable citizens to establish their title and to avail financial services. The Framework for Implementation of the Svamitva Scheme places the responsibility of carrying out appropriate amendments to the revenue laws for this purpose on the respective state revenue departments. As these departments make the required changes, a careful consideration of the laws will ensure that no legal loopholes impact its effectiveness.

For example, in Haryana, the Svamitva scheme has been implemented under section 26 of its Panchayati Raj Act. However, section 26 of the Act only empowers the panchayat to prepare the maps of the said area, not to create the associated RoRs. Panchayats, in this case, may not be the competent authority to complete this process of entrusting property titles to rural residents. Thus, there is a possibility of disputes if due legal process is not followed. To ensure such inconsistencies do not arise, a review of the state laws related to land and revenue impacting the legality of property cards should be undertaken. These experts could be tasked with drafting amendments to the existing laws or framing new laws to create legally admissible property cards.

Two, at 12%, single women form a significant share of the population but are often devoid of property ownership. The scheme presents an opportunity to enable recognition of women’s ownership rights as it issues property cards based on “possession” and not “inheritance”. To ensure this, states can also consider including details of more than one owner on the property cards, and recognising joint ownership of property by women.

Madhya Pradesh and Odisha have existing schemes that provide homestead land to weaker sections such as Dalits and single women. Svamitva can strive to include those in possession of these lands and also include low-income families and SC/ST communities who have been residing in village commons for generations. There is also scope to rope in civil society organisations for gender and caste-based sensitisation of field functionaries.

Third, the Fifteenth Finance Commission report has emphasised the importance of property tax as “the most effective instrument for revenue mobilisation by local bodies”, thereby encouraging the administration to “build a framework for property taxation with universal coverage.”

To ensure that Svamitva is able to achieve the objective of building financially resilient local governments, legal changes are needed to empower panchayats to both collect and utilise property tax. Gram panchayats may also be authorised to revise property tax records at the time of land record updates (registration, mutation) to ensure robust and consistent revenue collection. A Geographic Information System-based-based software may be provided to panchayats to manage property and taxation records. Such software is available for municipal corporations and urban local bodies. As more states gear up for the implementation of Svamitva, including these design principles could ensure the realisation of rural India’s aspirations.

Authors: Aparajita Bharti and Soumya Kapoor Mehta
Published: October 30, 2020 in the Hindu Business Line
The Labour Codes’ provisions for gig workers are welcome. But more needs to be done to help women workers.

Among the labour code Bills passed in the just concluded Parliament session, the provisions regarding social protection for gig economy workers have been a topic of much discussion. The need for such provisions was felt acutely during the pandemic-induced lockdown.

As the country came to a grinding halt, gig workers were left without any economic cushion. Among them, women were further disadvantaged as a majority of them are engaged in occupations such as beauty and wellness that cannot be undertaken with social distancing. Many others also had to forego available work to take care of increased domestic chores.

India had recorded an exponential growth in its gig economy even before the pandemic hit the nation. It is now the 5th largest country offering flexi-staffing, according to a report by Invest India.

Flexi-hours

This sector is a big draw for semi-skilled and skilled labour, but especially for women. A recent report by IWWAGE supported by the Asia Foundation surveyed women working with a prominent gig platform in India and found that an overwhelming majority (nearly 85 per cent of the surveyed women) associate with the platform as it allows them flexibility in working hours.

In urban areas where there is a higher burden of unpaid care work and domestic responsibilities due to nuclear family structures, flexibility is a critical factor for women. The survey respondents also reported an average income of ₹1,552 per day, depending on the number of tasks performed.

This is significantly higher compared to a typical salon job (where average monthly income ranges between ₹8,000-10,000, with a relatively long average working day of 10 hours or so). Most of these salon jobs are also in the informal economy, operating outside of any formal social security net. Therefore, while 81 per cent workers surveyed were reportedly dissatisfied due to lack of maternity benefits, it is evident that for most women, platform work is a step better than their existing options.

Legislative space

In this backdrop of a growing gig economy, the new social security code has created legislative space for Central and State governments to announce schemes for platform workers. It proposes a National Social Security Board which will recommend suitable schemes relating to life and disability cover, accident insurance, health and maternity benefits, old age protection, crèche or any other benefits. Aggregators employing gig workers will have to contribute 1-2 per cent of their annual turnover, with the total contribution not exceeding 5 per cent of the amount payable to such workers.

Three models

These provisions are in line with regulatory developments across the world which can be categorised into three models.

First is a model proposed in California under which companies are legally obliged to classify gig workers as employees and provide the requisite benefits that go along with such classification. This has been met with a huge pushback from companies like Uber and Lyft, which threatened to shut down in response.

The second model is followed by the EU, which aims at ensuring basic rights in employment terms and conditions for gig workers without entering the independent contractor/employee debate.

The third model is more of a voluntary agreement on standards as envisaged by the Singapore government, wherein companies are nudged to provide facilities such as accident insurance and upskilling to gig workers.

Middle ground

As the government starts to mull over specific schemes under the social security code, it must find a middle ground between these three models and ensure an adequate level of social protection while allowing space for the growth of the platform economy.

Unlike developed countries, where platform work is more informal than the rest of their economy, in India, platform work is already a step towards formalisation and its flexibility is an attractive feature especially for women who may not be able to work otherwise.

A new report by the Fairwork Foundation suggests five principles using which social security and decent work standards may be designed for platform workers, including women. These include fair pay, fair work conditions (prevention from infection, and payment to workers if they fall ill), fair contracts, fair management (e.g. no loss of bonus or incentive levels despite temporary deactivation of workers), and fair representation (e.g. engagement with worker associations, including organisations representing women).

Building on these principles, the government needs to balance the obligations of aggregators and social protection offered by the state through other mechanisms. Schemes which put large onus on industry are likely to be met with pushback.

For a bigger state role

This is even more relevant for women; the ILO has noted that placing undue financial costs on women’s employers is unlikely to contribute to labour market equality. Therefore, the state must play a bigger role towards social security for women gig workers to create a level playing field. Apart from direct contributions towards insurance and skilling, the state should also consider building enabling infrastructure in cities such as crèches and childcare centres, the presence of which expands employment opportunities for women.

Often, a lack of a gender lens in policy design leads to unintended consequences. Gig economy is a sunrise sector presenting new opportunities for women; therefore, their welfare and opportunities should be central to the regulatory objectives in this context.
—
Soumya Kapoor Mehta is the Head of the Initiative for What Works to Advance Women and Girls in the Economy (IWWAGE), an initiative of LEAD at Krea University; and Aparajita Bharti is Founding Partner at The Quantum Hub (TQH), a policy research and communications firm.

The Ministry of Health of Family Welfare, Government of India circulated the ‘Health Data Management Policy’ (Policy Proposal hereafter) for feedback and consultation on 26th August 2020. This Policy Proposal will serve as the fulcrum for the National Digital Health Blueprint through which the government aims to build a ‘federated’ digital architecture to further the goals of the National Health Policy. The proposed digital architecture is expected to be available to all healthcare providers and users, as well as entities such as pharmaceutical and insurance companies.

The Policy Proposal is a ‘guidance document’ to regulate the vast amounts of data that will be generated and processed under this architecture. Admittedly, the driving force for the proposal is the necessity of safeguarding privacy of confidential health data. It seeks to build on the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 (PDP Bill, 2019), which is currently under consideration in Parliament. The utility of building a digital health ecosystem has long been accepted. Its benefits include improved access to health records across primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare, improved decision making for service delivery and research for innovative solutions. Both the Policy Proposal and the PDP Bill, 2019 aim to set out a legal framework against which entities in the health ecosystem may undertake such exercises.

The consultation process for the Policy Proposal is underway till 21st September, 2020. In this note, we analyse the key points of departure between the Policy Proposal and the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, with regard to three aspects:

• Key Definitions
• Consent Framework
• Obligations on Data Fiduciaries

The Policy Proposal clarifies at the outset that no entity shall be entitled to any rights greater than what are already available under other applicable laws, which will presumably include the PDP Bill, 2019 and rules and regulations formed under this legislation once it is passed by Parliament. Readers can find a clause-by-clause comparison of the Policy Proposal and the PDP Bill, 2019 in the annexure to this note.

Access the note here

Authors: Aparajita Bharti and Mitali Nikore
Published: August 26, 2020 in Hindustan Times

The recent announcement of paid period leave for female employees by an Indian unicorn has once again thrust the issue of mandatory menstrual leave into the spotlight. Many activists feel that menstrual leave should be a paid leave granted by law, like maternity leave.

The support for period leave rests on a sound rights-based argument — that workplaces need to accommodate for biological differences between co-workers. Period leave allows women to rightfully rest during their menstrual cycle. It is well-documented that women experience a wide range of health complications during their monthly cycle — cramps, back and muscle pains, bloating, headaches, nausea, among others. These symptoms can assume greater severity for women suffering from chronic conditions like polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and endometriosis.

While the experience of a period is different for different women, and certainly differs month-to-month for the same woman, period leave is thought to be a means to legitimise the physical toll of a painful monthly cycle, to be taken if required, a means to create equity at the workplace. It is also cited as a way of normalising conversations around menstruation.

However, to achieve the stated objectives, we cannot ignore the economics of a period leave. We need to be clear where the funding for menstrual leaves comes from. If menstrual leave is structured like maternity leave, it threatens to increase the cost of hiring women. This has implications in the long-run.

Teamlease Services found that 1.1-1.8 million women lost their jobs in 2018-19 across 10 major sectors owing to the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act 2016 which doubled paid maternity leave from three to six months. Similarly, there are other costs associated with hiring women that lead to unsaid but rampant discrimination.

It is well-known that many employers in India are hesitant to hire women for jobs that require frequent travel as they need to make special arrangements for their safety. Essentially, society’s failure to keep women reasonably safe leads to a public cost internalised by employers as a private cost.

Paid period leave can further exacerbate this situation. Even if this by itself does not keep women out of jobs, it can lead to discrimination in hiring and promotion and raise the barriers for women to enter and climb the corporate ladder. It also creates grounds for companies to offer lower in-hand salaries to women, justifying it on the basis that the cost to company for women and men should be equal.

Further, we need to be cognisant of who menstrual leave would benefit and who it could potentially keep out of the workforce. About 55% of urban working women were in regular, salaried employment in 2018-19. Of these, 71% had no written job contract, 51% were not eligible for paid leave, and 53% were not eligible for any social security benefit. Period leave will not touch the lives of millions of casual women workers in the informal economy in both urban and rural areas. By increasing the costs of hiring women, we, in fact, risk keeping them out of the workforce.

Now let’s examine the second assertion, i.e., normalising conversation around menstruation. Gender specialist and menstrual health educator Mayuri Bhattacharjee notes that, “Period leave does nothing to reduce the biases and taboos around menstruation.”

The explicit term “period leave” creates a demarcation, rather than allowing it to be a type of sick leave — thereby allowing a judgment to be passed on the severity of the “sickness” or as many women experience in domestic spaces, legitimate complaints getting passed off as “pre-menstrual syndrome”. Further, like any other health-related information, it should be a person’s right to decide how open they would like to be about their experience.

Given these apprehensions, we need to find a balance between creating space for women to seek period leave when required and ensuring that it doesn’t become another ground for employers to favour men over women.

A good solution might be to increase the number of paid sick leaves by law for both men and women (but keeping it equal). While it increases the overall cost of doing business in India, it treats men and women at par. Changing the goal from menstrual leave to increasing the number of sick leaves will also let women take charge of how much they’d like to disclose about their menstrual health. Paid sick leaves can be viewed as a form of social security.

In the interim, we can also experiment with other middle-path solutions. The pandemic has demonstrated the potential of remote working to many employers. In industries where remote working has proven to be effective, employers can be encouraged to institute work-from-home policies that allow employees to work remotely for a fixed number of days in a month. This flexibility will ensure that women can work from the comfort of their home, in case they find it inconvenient to travel or work from office during their period.

While the intentions of those campaigning for menstrual leave are laudable, we must be cognisant of the unintended consequences that may arise from such a policy. No amount of safeguards in the maternity law have been able to guard against the ex-ante discrimination against women when they are being considered for a job, for a promotion, for a salary raise.

We must learn from this experience and to improve working conditions of the 10% women who are in the formal workforce, we must not forget about the remaining 90% women workers who are in the informal sector for whom such policies threaten to become the gatekeepers.

Mitali Nikore is founder, Nikore Associates, a policy design think tank, and Aparajita Bharti is founding partner, The Quantum Hub, a public policy research and advocacy firm. The views expressed are personal.