SABLA for Adolescence Girl

Sabla: The road to empowerment and self esteem for adolescent girls

 

Through various schemes including Sabla, the government is investing in the health, nutrition and development needs of adolescent girls to advance their rights to education, health and protection. This will help them to build a future of gender equality and justice

 

Adolescence is a phase during which major physical and psychological changes take place in children, along with changes in their social perceptions and expectations. Adolescence is also the stage when young people extend their relationships beyond parents and family and are intensely influenced by their peers and the outside world. This is the time that they need the maximum understanding and caring. 

There are nearly 1.2 billion adolescents in the world, that is, those aged between 10 to 19 years. 

Studies show that millions of adolescents today do not enjoy access to quality education, basic sexual and reproductive health care, support for mental health issues and disability, protection from violence, abuse and exploitation and forums for active participation. 

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Education-An Ambitious Aspiration

Education : An Ambitious Aspiration

Would it not be wiser to concentrate on school education and on raising the quality of higher education and gearing it more effectively to the country’s needs? Should we not use the excellent strategies in the plan presented by the Minister to gear education to facilitate the country’s advance in the global economy before we talk of making India the Education Super Power of the Future 

TTA conference on education entitled “Educationext-The Way Forward” held in Delhi earlier this year, the Minister for Human Resources Development Shri Kapil Sibal, in his inaugural address, launched the idea of India as "the Education Super Power of the Future". I could see that if used successfully these strategies could transform education in the country and make it the strong and powerful engine of advance that the country desperately needs in order to be able to forge ahead in today’s highly competitive global economy.

A four point program was outlined in the conference : (i) increasing enrolment in higher education from the existing 12.2 per cent of the population of the relevant age group to 30 per cent by 2025. (ii) the introduction of hundreds of new courses. (iii) the massive use of modern technologies for the delivery of education. And (iv) the inclusion of private players and the corporate sector as partners in the provision of education.

The principal strength of the plan is the idea of making an extensive use of technology. The five point program which runs as follows:

(1) Low cost devices such as tablets and mobile telephones

(2) The proliferation of cloud computing.

(3) Open education, provided through information technology highways.

(4) The provision of hundreds of courses with the idea of giving students extensive choice and the freedom to make combinations of their choice-for instance music and mathematics

(5) The creation of a communications structure designed to give students exposures such as hands on work experience, laboratory experimentation and research.

Finally to start with, 2.5 lakh villages will be connected with the use of fiber optics to create a powerful information highway.

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Technology and Innovation

Technology and Innovation

 

The larger share of public investments into R&D could also be leveraged by focusing of R&D for public and social good priorities of India

 

The ability to innovate and deploy globally competitive technologies has been recognized as the next key driver of global economic change in the emerging knowledge economy. While science is scholarship driven, technology and innovations are market and competition driven, respectively. Currently, Indian Research and Development landscape is largely influenced by the character of public funded research and selection of R&D priorities is mostly supply driven. The private sector investments into R&D have been marginal. Therefore, demand driven component of R&D goals has been limited. Policy, strategy and tools are required to stimulate larger investments into demand driven R&D goals. Energy sector invests far too low into R&D, although industrial turn over in the sector is extremely high. Promotion of Public-Private Partnerships into R&D and clean energy is a critical component of India’s competitiveness in global trade and industrial growth. New strategies and tools are required to stimulate engagement of private sector into R&D and enhance the share of private sector investment from the current 26% of India’s R&D spend to at least 50% during the 12th plan period.  

The larger share of public investments into R&D could also be leveraged by focusing of R&D for public and social good priorities of the country. There is an un-tapped opportunity for India to emerge as a global leader in affordable innovations under PPP by focusing on R&D for public and social goods in the areas of agriculture and food security, water, energy, affordable health care, education, environment, renovation of urban infrastructure, S&T inputs to rural development etc. Residual idealism among the youth and vast talent base offer an opportunity for the R&D sector in the country to gain leadership in affordable and social innovations.

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Information Technology in India

Information Technology in India

 

 

Although India has had significant success in IT services, it has yet to strike gold with IT products and intellectual property

  

IT in India has come a long way since it first appeared in the 1980s, when US technology companies started leveraging the cost arbitrage between US and Indian programmers. The liberalization of certain economic policies that started in 1991 led to the birth of innovative companies, such as Infosys and Wipro. These companies used the “quality route” to grow their business—Indian IT companies followed the five levels of the Software Engineering Institute’s certification more than any other country, including US.

 

The arrival of the Internet and imaginative government policies, such as fast and easy access to international data circuits and tax benefits through Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), led to further growth. Then, by the turn of the century, the IT industry started focusing on what I refer to as EQQ—English language skills for engineers and higher quantities of quality engineers. EQQ gave India an advantage over Ireland (which had fewer programmers), China (which lacked engineers proficient in English), and the Philippines (which lacked qualified programmers). The Y2K phenomenon that led to a global shortage of programmers propelled Indian IT companies into a position of global leadership. By the middle of the last decade, Indian IT had arrived. 

Achievements 

India’s IT industry is growing steadily. Indian IT companies have reached the global stage and are undertaking interesting IT projects.  

Employment and Education 

The IT sector has created jobs for 2.8 million IT professionals and has indirectly employed an additional 8.9 million. The rapid growth of engineering education, with more than 500,000 undergraduate IT engineers graduating per year, feeds into this steadily growing IT industry. 

Business Growth 

For the 2012 financial year (which ended March 2012), annual business crossed US$100 billion in sales revenue, with IT contributing to 7.5 percent of India’s GDP. Furthermore, India had 58 percent of the “global IT services” outsourcing revenue. Indian IT services account for 25 percent of its exports.  

Most Fortune 500 companies outsource some of their work to Indian IT companies, and many (almost all in the top 100) operate either directly or indirectly in India. 

The IT company Tata Consultancy Services reached $10 billion in annual revenue by March 2012, with a healthy bottom line (22 percent). Another company, Infosys (with $7 billion in annual revenue), created the “ACM Infosys Foundation Award for Computing Science” in 2007 to celebrate 25 years of service (awards.acm.org). Fortune magazine recently named Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy, who is known for his unique way of combining capitalism and socialism, as one of the 12 greatest entrepreneurs of our time.  

E-Governance 

Over the past five years, India has spent billions of dollars on its e-governance project—one of the largest e-governance projects in the world (http://negp.gov.in). 

Moving Up the Value Chain 

 

Al though India has had significant success in IT services (including business-process outsourcing), it has yet to strike gold with IT products (hardware and software) and intellectual property (IP). There are just a handful of success stories, one of which is the Finacle software suite from Infosys. 

Finacle addresses the core banking, e-banking, treasury, wealth management, and customer relationship-management needs of retail, corporate, and universal bank customers (including Islamic banking). Finacle is currently used by 148 banks spread across 75 counties with nearly 400 million accounts and 300 million customers (www.infosys.com/finacle). Gartner has placed it in the “Leaders Quadrant” of its “Magic Quadrant for International Retail Core Banking.” 

Ittiem Systems offers another success story. It creates IP in the digital signal processing (DSP) area for video communications, automotive in fotronics, networking, and media (see www.ittiam.com ). It has been in business for 10 years and its current revenue is $20 million—37 percent of which is generated through IP licensing. Such a revenue model isn’t common in many Indian companies. For the last seven years, Forward Concepts (www.fwdconcepts.com ) has named Ittiam Systems the “World’s Most Preferred DSP IP Supplier.” 

 

 

Indian IT companies must “move up the value chain” in the years to come. Possible strategies might include : 

 

-Producing focused products for either the domestic sector, specific markets (say, emerging or African markets), or global markets;

-Developing technology in emerging areas ( next -generation networking protocols, for example); and

-Creating IP in areas where Indian IT companies have strength or for local markets.

 

      The consumption of IT within India must improve too. In addition to surging exports, IT should improve efficiencies within the Indian industry. Although a lot has yet to be achieved, India successfully transformed its banking through widespread IT adoption. Thanks to the Reserve Bank’s constant push for technology upgrades in the banks, the banking sector saw core banking, ATM, and multichannel banking implemented across all the banks. Efforts are ongoing to get those citizens who aren’t covered by banking (a significant portion of India’s population) covered through “no frill,” inclusive, or mobile banking. 

IT: India’s Tomorrow 

Former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajapayee once described IT as “India’s tomorrow.” With the convergence of computing, communications, and electronics, the scope of IT is changing, as are key industries, such as : 

 

-transportation (road, rail, air, sea, and urban transport);

-financial services (banking, insurance and stock trading);

-hospitality (hotels, restaurants, and tourism);

-automotive and aerospace;

-core industries (oil, gas, steel, and mining);

-services (education and healthcare); and

-retail. 

Areas such as industrial automation and medical electronics are embracing open standards and starting to use commodity hardware. Leading companies in those domains—such as ABB and Siemens—could soon become “IT companies.” Indian IT is thus likely to enjoy steady and sustained growth for at least another decade. 

 

Roadblocks to Continued Growth 

However, the Indian IT industry must overcome some roadblocks to maintain its current rate of growth. 

 

Anti-Outsourcing Sentiment

 

Increasingly, global markets (including in the US) are trying to prevent outsourcing—particularly to “low cost” destinations like India. 

 

 

Employment Changes 

India has seen higher internal costs (mostly wages), reduced productivity, and unionism among its IT employees. The Indian IT industry has had double-digit wage increases for many years, whereas wage increases have been considerably lower elsewhere. For example, the 2012 projected salary increase for India is 12 percent, whereas it’s 9.5 percent for China and 7 percent for the Philippines. 

 

Education 

Universities haven’t been able to graduate large numbers of high quality professionals to take up jobs in the IT industry. There’s an acute shortage of faculty in higher education due to much smaller enrolment in graduate studies compared to undergraduate degrees. In addition, faculty compensation is insufficient. However, things are improving with the start of new Institutes of Information Technology (IITs), Central Universities (including “Innovation Universities,” which focus on new technology and inter/cross-disciplinary research in emerging areas), and capacity increases in existing institutions- along with the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission in 2010. 

 

New Business Models 

India must address disruptions in business models. For example, new applications are fundamentally changing how software is produced (in very small groups or by just a single person), delivered (over the “cloud”), and consumed (using appliances like smart phones). 

 

 

Key Projects and Emerging Companies 

Here, I look at some key IT projects and emerging IT companies in India. (For a brief discussion of how I selected these particular projects, see Box.) 

 

 

Aadhar 

Project Aadhar, which started in 2009 and is one of the most ambitious IT projects in the world, aims to provide a unique ID to every citizen (http://uidai.gov.in ). By 2014, using a combination of biometric measures, Aadhar aims to identify every Indian and accept or reject identity claims within a few seconds- for the 1.2 billion Indians spread out across the country. 

 

Flipkart 

In 2007, two IIT graduates, Sachin and Binny Bansal, started Flipkart, an Indian e-commerce store (www.flipkart.com). It’s current annual revenue is almost $100 million, and it’s expected to grow to $1 billion by 2015. Flipkart focuses on:

-ease of use;

-variety (books, stationery, electronics, laptops,  Mobiles & tablets, cloths and recently digital rights.

-management (DRM)-free digital music);

-low prices (books are often sent with no shipping charges); and

-timely delivery. 

Flipkart also address the unusual Indian needs of “cash on delivery” (most of the adult Indian population doesn’t use credit cards) and “credit-card swipe on delivery” (for the younger generation, which uses credit cards but doesn’t trust online Internet commerce). 

 

RedBus 

RedBus provides Internet-based ticketing solutions for small and often unorganized bus operators across the country (www.redbus.in ). Founded by Phanindra Sama, Charan Padmaraju, and Sudhakar Parapuneni—IT professionals from three different parts of India—RedBus currently helps more than 350 operators driving more than 4,500 routes. Millions of RedBus customers can go to any of the 4,500 outlets to buy a ticket, from anywhere to anywhere.  

Over the last three years, RedBus revenues were 5 million, 50 million, and 1 billion rupees, respectively, and it currently has almost 500 employees. In March, Fast Company named it one of the 50 most innovative companies (www.fastcompany.com/most-innovativecompanies/2012/redbus ). Using an unusual model of offering its bus operators the same commission whether they sell 100 or 1,000 tickets has helped RedBus quickly win over the large number of operators who are new not only to Net-based service but also to the “organized sector.”

 

 

TutorVista 

TutorVista, a leading online education company (www.tutorvista.com ), was incubated at the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore. Its founder, serial entrepreneur Krishnan Ganesh, bet on the Internet in 2005 to help high school students in the US with online tutoring. His unique selling proposition was to offer quality teachers at an affordable price. 

Pearson acquired TutorVista in 2011, and today it has 2,000 teachers across India, the US, the UK, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, China, and South East Asia. The tutors help students in math, physics, chemistry, biology, and English and with test preparation and homework. IT in India has seen amazing growth, thanks to the liberalization of economic policies, conducive government policies, growth in higher education, and the uptake in entrepreneurship. Several countries are attempting to leverage IT for their economic development, and focusing on the key issues of education, policy support, and entrepreneurship is likely to pay rich dividends. Unless Indian education and research (on the supply side), IT companies (on the demand side) , and the government and media (enablers) continue to innovate, India might not be able to sustain its current leadership position in this area.

 

By : Sowmyanarayanan Sadagopan The author is Director, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore.  

Educational System Reform

One Good Example is Worth a Thousand Theories

This comment by Stanley Fischer, the former Managing Director of the IMF is quoted by Thomas Friedman in his book ‘The World is Flat’ and perhaps best summarises a general perception that while there is no dearth of expert opinion on what should be done in the primary education sector, it is now time to look at examples of what has actually worked to analyse the reasons for this and to suggest how best these can be replicated elsewhere. The schools run by the Government of Delhi for instance  have undergone a radical transformation in the past few years from a system which was once  considered one of the worst in the country to one which is now undoubtedly one of the best. Drab, dull, ray and dirty buildings are giving way to bright, cheerful, clean ones with functional toilets and  drinking water for all children. Teacher absenteeism, which used to be among the highest in India, has  been almost wiped out and all teachers now reach their school on time and remain there for the full  school day. All financial benefits such as that for school uniforms and all supplies such as text books  reach each and every child and there is no diversion. Classroom teaching has undergone an amazing  change with the introduction of joyful methods of teaching particularly for the primary classes, and all  Delhi Government school children are learning to speak English just like all “other” children. In fact,  short video clips showing the impact of the English language training imparted to school teachers  under an arrangement with the British Council can be viewed at the Education Department’s official website  www.edudel.nic.in. The smart children shown there creating stories in class from English words given to them by their teacher are all primary students in Standard V in Delhi Government Schools. The achievements are reflected in the fact that the overall enrolment in all classes increased by 20% in just  three year period till 2008. More significantly the Government took a major decision at the start of the  academic year in April 2009 to increase the number of seats available in all Delhi Government School (DGS) in primary classes by a huge 10 % in order to accommodate the increasing number of  applications received for admissions. A substantial number of the new students are coming from  private  schools within Delhi and adjoining areas in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, or are children who would otherwise have gone to a private school but for the visible improvements in DGS. In fact, the national  media, undoubtedly one of the hardest to please, have carried front page articles on how DGS are now a  viable alternative to private schools, a far cry indeed from just a few years ago when even the Planning  Commission suggested that we hand over all our schools to the private sector or NGOs as we just  could  not run them”.

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Human Development Index

The Human Development Concept

Human Development is a development paradigm that is about much more than the rise or fall of national incomes. It is about creating an environment in which people can develop their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accord with their needs and interests. People are the real wealth of nations. Development is thus about expanding the choices people have to lead lives that they value. And it is thus about much more than economic growth, which is only a means - if a very important one - of enlarging people’s choices.

Fundamental to enlarging these choices is building human capabilities —the range of things that people can do or be in life. The most basic capabilities for human development are to lead long and healthy lives, to be knowledgeable, to have access to the resources needed for a decent standard of living and to be able to participate in the life of the community. Without these, many choices are simply not available, and many opportunities in life remain inaccessible.

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