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Underage Domestic from Jharkand Brutally Killed, found chopped to pieces in Drain: Delhi

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Another case of brute violence against a 16 year old woman domestic help has shocked the Indian capital, Delhi. A 16-year-old domestic help from Jharkhand was killed and her body chopped into pieces after she demanded her salary from the men who brought her to the capital, police said. One of the men has been arrested and a search is on to nab three other accused. According to police, the body parts were found in separate packets in a drain in outer Delhi’s Miyanwali Nagar on May 4. Additional DCP (outer) Rajender Singh Sagar told The Indian Express that the accused, Manjeet Singh Karketa (30), was nabbed from his rented accommodation in Nangloi’s Bhooton Wali Gali on May 17.


Accused, Manjeet, and his associates killed Soni Kumari after she demanded that he return her salary and let her go home. Image Courtesy: Indian Express

Additional DCP (outer) Rajender Singh Sagar told The Indian Express that the accused, Manjeet Singh Karketa (30), was nabbed from his rented accommodation in Nangloi’s Bhooton Wali Gali on May 17.  “Manjeet disclosed that he, along with his accomplices, brought the victim, Soni Kumari, to Delhi three years ago. They found her employment at a house in East of Kailash,” said DCP Sagar. Police said Kumari used to earn Rs 6,000 a month, and that Manjeet used to take all her salary to keep her under his control. However, a year later, she started demanding her salary so that she could return home.
 
That is when the assaults began. “Manjeet then took her to his home in Nangloi and tried to pacify her. When his efforts failed, he, along with Shalu (31) and Gauri (36), strangled the girl on May 3. They then chopped up the body, put the pieces in plastic bags and dumped them in a drain nearby. We had to join the head with the torso to identify the girl,” said Sagar. Police said that on scanning CCTV cameras near the drain, some persons could be seen carrying packets. A team led by Inspector Sukhbir Malik, under the supervision of ACP (Operations) Dinesh Kumar, then went to 200 houses in nearby localities with a photo of the girl.
 
“They showed the photo to residents… one of them said he had spotted the girl in a house in Bhooton Wali Gali. The team when to the house but found it locked… Manjeet was finally nabbed on May 17 when he visited his residence,” said the DCP. During questioning, Manjeet told police that he and his accomplices, Shalu and Gauri — who are also domestic helps — used to lure young girls from poor families in Jharkhand with employment opportunities in Delhi.

They would bring the girls to the capital and find them jobs as domestic helps, police said. “With the help of one Rakesh, the trio found Kumari a job. Rakesh used to take the money from her employer, which they split amongst themselves,” added Sagar.
 
Police said the girl was not allowed to contact her family, adding that Rakesh and Manjeet had told the girl’s employer that she was their relative and that they were in touch with her parents. Police said they will approach her employer for further investigation, and, if required, will book them under relevant charges as well.

Again, Man lynched in MP, Allegations of Cowslaughter

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In yet another incident of lynching, a 45-year-old man, a Muslim, was beaten to death while his friend was severely thrashed by four people for allegedly slaughtering a cow in Madhya Pradesh’s Satna district, the police said. The friend of 45 year old Siraj, was Shakeel (35) was also brutally thrashed and sustained severe injuries, by yet another incident of cow vigilantism.

Satna Lynching

Four persons accused in the case have been arrested.

Modus Operandi? The accused, on getting information that two people were slaughtering a cow at a forest area in Anjar village, reached the spot and allegedly beat one of them to death on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday, Superintendent of Police Rajesh Hingerkar said.

Sub-Divisional Officer of Police, Maiher area, Arvind Tiwari, said they recovered “beef” and carcass of a slaughtered bull from the spot. As per the investigation, the deceased was beaten with lathis (sticks), he said.

On getting information about the incident, the police reached the spot and rushed the injured to a hospital in Jabalpur district, Tiwari said. The arrested people are Pawan Singh (35), Vijay Singh (26), Phool Singh (36) and Narayan Singh (28).

About 400 policemen have been deployed to maintain law and order in the area following the incident, inspector general of police, Rewa Range, Umesh Joga said.
 

A Video Again, Shows Dalit Couple Tied Up, Flogged, Man Dies: Gujarat

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The Dalit man is shown being brutally flogged by two men in the disturbing footage, which was tweeted this morning by Gujarat legislator, Jignesh Mevani

Dalit Beaten
 

  1. A Dalit couple in Gujarat allegedly beaten; husband dies, wife is critical
  2. Gujarat lawmaker Jignesh Mevani tweeted the video, allegedly from Rajkot
  3. Five people have reportedly been caught

The mercilessly beating, to death of a Dalit man, bound by ropes around his waist, is the latest incident, video-taped and circulated, revealing again how media is being used to spread news about crude violence. The video clip allegedly from Gujarat’s Rajkot district. The man died after the savage beating that took place reportedly on the orders of an auto-parts factory owner, according to the police complaint. His wife was allegedly beaten up too.

The man, identified as Mukesh Vaniya, winces and screams as he is flogged by two men in the disturbing footage tweeted this morning by Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani.

“Mr Mukesh Vaniya belonging to a scheduled caste was miserably thrashed and murdered by factory owners in Rajkot and his wife was brutally beaten up,” he tweeted with the hashtag #GujaratIsNot Safe4Dalits.

Five people, including the factory owner, have been arrested on charges of murder and under the law on atrocities against Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. “We have arrested five people, including the factory owner. I cannot reveal his name yet as it’s not mentioned in the FIR (first information report). A murder case has been filed under the SC/ST Act and a deputy rank officer will probe the case,” Rajkot senior police officer Shruti Mehta said.

On Sunday morning, Mukesh Vaniya and his wife, both rag-pickers, were using magnets to look for scrap when some factory workers confronted them, accusing them of theft. The woman escaped to get help from their village nearby. By the time she returned with some people, Vaniya was prone on the ground. He was pronounced dead in the hospital.

Jignesh Mevani’s post describes the incident as “worse than the 2016 Una attack“, in which four Dalits were stripped and thrashed by cow vigilantes while they were skinning a cow that had been electrocuted.

“This is a far more gruesome incident than Una. In Una, the victims were beaten up and humiliated. Whereas, here a man lost his life amidst caste violence… The government of Gujarat has still not learned from its past mistakes,” Mr Mevani wrote on Facebook.

The Una incident provoked protests by the community and led to the prominence of Dalit leaders like Jignesh Mevani, who contested and won in the Gujarat election last year.

The Fearless Justice Chelameswar

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On January 12, 2018, in an unprecedented move, Justice Jasti Chelameswar, along with fellow Justices Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph, held a press conference, where he said, “The situation in the Supreme Court is not in order.” While it was this unprecedented act that put him in the headlines, Justice Chelameshwar has had a long and illustrious career where he has presided over many significant and often controversial cases. After his retirement, here is a look back at a judge who was hailed by some as the court’s “chief dissenter.”   

Justice Chamleshwar
Image: Hindustan Times

Supreme Court Justice Jasti Chelameswar, 64, whose last working day was Friday, May 18, was the second of the five senior-most judges on the court. Chelameswar was born in Andhra Pradesh, the son of a district court lawyer. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in physics from Chennai’s Loyola College before pursuing a degree in law. Prior to being appointed to the Supreme Court in 2011, Chelameswar also served as Chief Justice of the Kerala and Guwahati High Courts, and also on the Andhra Pradesh High Court. 

In 2015, Justice Chelameswar was the lone dissenting judge in the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) case, ruling in favour of the NJAC. He criticised the lack of transparency in the selection process for judges, saying, “Proceedings of the collegium were absolutely opaque and inaccessible both to public and history, barring occasional leaks”. Chelameswar said, “Such a state of affairs does not either enhance the credibility of the institution or good for the people of this country.” 

Also in 2015, the two-judge bench of Justice Chelameswar and Justice Rohinton Nariman, in the case of Shreya Singhal vs. Union of India, struck down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, which had previously been used to target those vocalising dissent, among others. The bench deemed Section 66A was in violation of the Article 19 of the Constitution that guarantees the right to freedom of expression. It stated that “…the possibility of Section 66A being applied for purposes not sanctioned by the Constitution cannot be ruled out. It must, therefore, be held to be wholly unconstitutional and void.”

In August 2017, Justice Chelameswar was part of the nine-judge bench that unanimously ruled that privacy is a fundamental right. Chelameswar was one of the justices that issued independent, concurring judgments, in which he wrote, “Fundamental rights are the only constitutional firewall to prevent State’s interference with those core freedoms constituting liberty of a human being. The right to privacy is certainly one of those core freedoms which is to be defended. It is part of liberty within the meaning of that expression in Article 21.”

Addressing the media at the unprecedented press conference held by four sitting justices of the Supreme Court in January 2018, Chelameswar said, “Many things which are less than desirable have happened in the last few months…We do not want people to say 20 years later that all four senior-most judges sold their souls”. In a letter to Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, the four justices alleged there had been instances in which “cases having far-reaching consequences for the nation and the institution had been assigned by the Chief Justice of this Court selectively to the Benches ‘of their preferences’ without any rational basis for such assignment.” This was not the first time Chelameswar went toe-to-toe with CJI Misra.

On his last working day, Justice Chelameswar followed tradition, sharing a bench with Chief Justice Misra. Advocate Prashant Bhushan said Chelameswar “did a great job in upholding democracy,” a sentiment also expressed by senior advocate Rajiv Dutta. Chelameswar, who had declined an invite from the Supreme Court Bar Association for a farewell function saying he wanted to keep his retirement a “private affair,” simply rose for the day, folded his hands and said, “It’s my only response”.

Iran eyes Israel: the fire next time

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The international politics of escalating tension between Israel and Iran are in flux. In just three weeks, a change in the atmosphere can be measured in three ways.First, the western airstrikes against Bashar al-Assad’s regime on the night of 13-14 April were met with disappointment by advisors of Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. Instead of a major operation that delivered a sharp warning to Iran over its military build-up in Syria, the attack was little more than symbolic. If the coordinated United States-France-United Kingdom action inflicted no real military damage, nor did it do anything to deter the Quds force – the external arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – from further building up its forces in Syria  (see “After the Syria raid: what next?“, 17 April 2018).

lead
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on April 30, 2018, claims he can “prove” Iran’s secret development of nuclear weapons. JINI/Press Association. All rights reserved.

Second, Trump’s declared opposition to the nuclear agreement with Iran was leading three of its other signatories –  France, Germany and the UK – to launch a strong diplomatic effort to dissuade him from repudiating it. For Israel, the deal’s survival promised to be a worrying setback.
Third, the Assad regime’s advancing control of Syrian territory was part of an emerging tripartite threat to Israel’s regional power. A heavily armed, well entrenched and confident Hizbollah militia was based just across Israel’s northern border in Lebanon, with relatively easy supply-lines from Iran. And a permanent Quds force military presence in Syria was likely to include enlarged missile production and assembly facilities.

Today, the picture already looks different. Binyamin Netanyahu now leads a government that is little short of triumphalist. In the end, Trump ignored his supposed European allies and on 8 May gave official approval to the United States’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. The White House made it clear that if Iran starts up its nuclear programme it will face a military response. Moreover, the new US embassy was inaugurated in Jerusalem on 14 May, while the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have met the Palestinian protests in Gaza with lethally effective force.

Some indication of Israel’s restored confidence is its justification for that use of force, which has killed dozens of people and wounded over 2,000, the majority of the latter hospitalised with gunshot wounds. Israeli government spokespersons appearing in the western media argue that the protesters were either unthinking dupes of Hamas or themselves of malign intent. This implies that the IDF is facing thousands of murderous terrorists determined to breach the border and attack innocent Israeli villagers, and who thus deserve to be shot.

Such rhetoric may be counterproductive, not least as several western media outlets are reporting from within Gaza and are able to offer a more balanced view. The Israeli government knows this, yet with the firm support of the US administration feels no need to refine its message. With Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, and especially John Bolton advising Trump, what is there to fear? 

The coming war
All is not what it seems, though, a point highlighted by the fallout from Israel’s severe military assault against a Quds missile-strike towards the Golan heights. The sequence began with the firing of a barrage of twenty 1970s-vintage unguided BM-27short-range rockets towards Israeli positions on the Golan. It is not clear how many landed, but there were no Israeli casualties (see “Target Tehran“, 10 May 2018)

Against this small-scale attack, on the same night the IDF launched its biggest air operation in Syria for decades, hitting dozens of targets associated with the Quds force. Israel’s defence minister Avigdor Lieberman said that the IDF had hit “almost all of the Iranian infrastructure in Syria, and they should remember that when it rains here, there will be a downpour there. I hope we have completed this episode” (see Yaakov Lappin & Jeremy Binnie, “Israel responds to rocket fire by striking Iranian targets in Syria”, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 11 May 2018). 

There is, however, something too easy in the view that the Quds force staged an abortive attack which was eclipsed by immediate, massive – and triumphant – IDF retaliation. Quds is, after all, experienced and battle-hardened, not least by two years of aiding Iraq’s government in the fight against ISIS in Mosul and elsewhere. In doing so it has been loosely allied with a much wider coalition, including the United States and its western allies with their massive use of air-power. The force has also been on the receiving end of scores of smaller Israeli airstrikes in Syria. All this gives its commanders confidence in their own abiities and insight into western capabilities.

The IRGC as a whole is intensely engaged in worst-case planning for an expected war with Israel and the United States. The increased Quds force deployments in Syria over the last couple of years, and the construction of permanent bases, make a second front available when that war comes. There would be no purpose in undertaking a limited and crude rocket-attack towards well-protected Israeli forces on the Golan heights, except as a deliberate provocation designed to assess Israeli capabilities against a range of targets (see “Israel vs Iran, a looming war“, 26 April 2018).

Much physical damage will certainly have been done, but it’s almost certain that most key equipment will have been moved and personnel evacuated in advance. The Iranians will now be doing site-by-site assessments of the Israeli attacks: working out how different weapons worked, whether “bunker-buster” and thermobaric (fuel-air explosive) weapons were used, whether the IDF had any problems with Syrian air defences, and what can be learned from the rapid nature of the Israeli response. That the response came within hours of the Iranian firing indicates that it was largely pre-planned.

In short, the Iranian commanders will now have a far better understanding of Israeli airforce capabilities. That represents an invaluable source of intelligence, capable of being used to assess their future deployments in Syria and indeed in Iran itself. Even more useful will be intelligence sharing with Hizbollah’s forces across southern Lebanon. To take one example, there are unconfirmed reports that the IDF did indeed use earth-penetrating (bunker-buster) bombs, having since 2010 received 500 from the United States. Since the last war with Israel in 2006, Hizbollah has progressively used underground storage for many of its missiles, so any data on the IDF’s actual capabilities in this regard will be priceless.

At first sight the recent exchange of fire was a clear victory for the IDF against an incompetent enemy. At second sight it was much more than that. The Iranians will now be much better prepared for what might be to come.

Paul Rogers is professor in the department of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. He is openDemocracy’s international security adviser, and has been writing a weekly column on global security since 28 September 2001; he also writes a monthly briefing for the Oxford Research Group. His latest book is Irregular War: ISIS and the New Threat from the Margins (IB Tauris, 2016), which follows Why We’re Losing the War on Terror (Polity, 2007), and Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century (Pluto Press, 3rd edition, 2010). He is on Twitter at: @ProfPRogers

Courtesy: https://www.opendemocracy.net/
 

5 things to know about mass shootings in America

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At least 10 students were killed at a Santa Fe, Texas high school on May 18 after a classmate opened fire with a shotgun and a .38 revolver.

US Shooting
Outside Santa Fe High School in Texas on May 18, 2018. AP Photo/David J. Phillip

The shooting came just three months after another teen shooter killed 17 in Parkland, Florida, sparking nationwide youth-led protests over gun violence – and a familiar debate over what changes could really make a difference.

As a criminologist, I often hear misconceptions creeping into the debate that springs up whenever a mass shooting occurs.

Here’s what the research actually shows.
 

#1: More guns don’t make you safer

A study I conducted on mass shootings indicated that this phenomenon is not limited to the United States.

Mass shootings also took place in 25 other wealthy nations between 1983 and 2013, but the number of mass shootings in the United States far surpasses that of any other country included in the study during the same period of time.

The U.S. had 78 mass shootings during that 30-year period.

The highest number of mass shootings experienced outside the United States was in Germany – where seven shootings occurred.

In the other 24 industrialized countries taken together, 41 mass shootings took place.

In other words, the U.S. had nearly double the number of mass shootings than all other 24 countries combined in the same 30-year period.

Another significant finding is that mass shootings and gun ownership rates are highly correlated. The higher the gun ownership rate, the more a country is susceptible to experiencing mass shooting incidents. This association remains high even when the United States is withdrawn from the analysis.

Similar results have been found by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which states that countries with higher levels of firearm ownership also have higher firearm homicide rates.

My study also shows a strong correlation between mass shooting casualties and overall death by firearms rates. However, in this last analysis, the relation seems to be mainly driven by the very high number of deaths by firearms in the United States. The relation disappears when the United States is withdrawn from the analysis.
 

#2: Mass shootings are more frequent

A recent study published by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center shows that the frequency of mass shooting is increasing over time. The researchers measured the increase by calculating the time between the occurrence of mass shootings. According to the research, the days separating mass shooting occurrence went from on average 200 days during the period of 1983 to 2011 to 64 days since 2011.

What is most alarming with mass shootings is the fact that this increasing trend is moving in the opposite direction of overall intentional homicide rates in the U.S., which decreased by almost 50 percent since 1993 and in Europe where intentional homicides decreased by 40 percent between 2003 and 2013.
 

#3: Restricting sales works


Police secure the area near a mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., Dec. 2, 2015. Mario Anzuoni/REUTERS

Thanks to the Second Amendment, the United States has permissive gun licensing laws. This is in contrast to most developed countries, which have restrictive laws.

According to a seminal work by criminologists George Newton and Franklin Zimring, permissive gun licensing laws refer to a system in which everyone except specially prohibited groups of persons can purchase a firearm. In such a system, an individual does not have to justify purchasing a weapon; rather, the licensing authority has the burden of proof to deny gun acquisition.

By contrast, restrictive gun licensing laws refer to a system in which individuals who want to purchase firearms must demonstrate to a licensing authority that they have valid reasons to get a gun – like using it on a shooting range or going hunting – and that they demonstrate “good character .”

The differences between these type of gun laws have important impacts. Countries with more restrictive gun licensing laws show fewer deaths by firearms and a lower gun ownership rate.
 

#4: Background checks work

In most of the restrictive background checks performed in developed countries like Canada and Australia, citizens are required to train for gun handling, obtain a license for hunting or provide proof of membership to a shooting range.

Individuals must prove that they do not belong to any “prohibited group,” such as the mentally ill, criminals, children or those at high risk of committing violent crime, such as individuals with a police record of threatening the life of another.

Here’s the bottom line. With these provisions, most U.S. active shooters would have been denied the purchase of a firearm.
 

#5: Most mass shootings are not terrorism

Journalists sometimes describe mass shooting as a form of domestic terrorism. This connection may be misleading.

There is no doubt that mass shootings are “terrifying” and “terrorize” the community where they have happened. However, not all active shooters involved in mass shooting have a political message or cause.

For example, the church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, in June 2015 was a hate crime but was not judged by the federal government to be a terrorist act.

The majority of active shooters are linked to mental health issues, bullying and disgruntled employees. Active shooters may be motivated by a variety of personal or political motivations, usually not aimed at weakening government legitimacy. Frequent motivations are revenge or a quest for power.

Editor’s note: This piece was updated on May 18, 2018 and Oct. 2, 2017. It was originally published on Dec. 3, 2015.
 

Frederic Lemieux, Professor of the Practice and Faculty Director of the Master’s in Applied Intelligence, Georgetown University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Only 4.75 Million Join India’s Workforce Annually, Not 12 Million As Claimed

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New Delhi: On average, 4.75 million people are added to the labour force in India per year, an analysis of labour bureau data over a period of four years from 2012 shows.

 

LabourForce

 
This is less than half the 12 million that people think enter the labour force on an annual basis.
 

Labour Force In India
YearMaleFemaleTotalAddition
2012337.68106.01451.56 
2013341.8296.63444.78-6.79
2014339.6113.03*469.6524.87
2015354.06107.59465.8-3.85
   Average4.75

Source: Author’s calculation based on Labour Bureau of India estimates; Figures in million
* Refer to Sections 3.15 and 3.16 of Labour Bureau Report on Employment & Unemployment Survey, 2013-14 (pg: 24, 25), citing increase in female LFPR
 
Entering the labour force means that you are either employed or unemployed but actively looking for work. India’s labour force was just under 466 million people in 2015.
 
The labour force participation rate is the total number of employed persons and unemployed persons that are looking for work divided by the total population over 15 years of age.
 
Source: Labour Bureau Report on Employment & Unemployment Surveys 2011-12 (Table 4.1), 2012-13 (Table 4.1), 2013-14 (Table 3.1), 2015-16 (Table 3.1); Figures in percentage
* Refer to Sections 3.15 and 3.16 of Labour Bureau Report on Employment & Unemployment Survey, 2013-14 (pg: 24, 25), citing increase in female LFPR
 
The total labour force participation rate was 50.3% in 2015, according to the Labour Bureau’s  Employment –Unemployment Survey, 2015, down from 52.5% in 2014.
 
That is, only one out of every two Indians above the age of 15 is either employed or looking for work. At 23.7% in 2015, female labour force participation is even lower, and has been falling for the last decade. (Read here, here and here)
 
12 million? 5 million?
 
So, where does the 12 million figure come from? It is true that between 2001 and 2005, on average, roughly 12 million entered the labour force every year. But never since then.
 
During this period, there was an increase in the share of self-employed in rural and urban areas, as a result of additional employment opportunities that came with a period of economic growth–prompting people to take up contractual employment in sectors such as real estate, construction and in small enterprises.
 
The subsequent period, 2005 to 2010, saw a drastic decline in the number of people entering the labour force as the female labour force participation declined and a drop in the incidence of casual labour.
 
The 12 million figure frequently cited is the difference in the average annual change in the size of the total working age population, 15 to 59 year olds, according to UN Population Division estimates between 2011 and 2016.
 

India’s Working-Age Population, 2011-16
YearActual Population (In million)Increment in population (In million)
MaleFemaleTotalTotalMaleFemale
2011398.20368.98767.18   
2012404.72375.09779.8112.626.526.10
2013411.22381.18792.4012.596.506.10
2014417.67387.20804.8712.476.456.02
2015424.06393.09817.1512.286.395.89
2016430.49399.06829.5512.416.435.98
   Average12.456.456.00

Source: UN Population Division estimates
 
On average, between 2005 and 2015, just under half a million 15 to 17 year olds joined the working age group annually.
 

Rise In India’s Working Age Population, 2005-2015
YearTotal Population (In million)Increment in Population (In million)
5 yearlyAnnual
200569.79  
201072.632.840.57
201574.621.990.40
  Average0.48

Source: Author’s calculation based on UN Population Division estimates
 
And not all of these people of working age choose to enter the labour market. Some may decide to stay in education while others may decide, or be compelled, to neither enter education nor employment (NEET).
 
The number of NEET youth, aged 15 to 29, was 30.8% in 2015, according to this 2017 India report by OECD Economic Surveys.
 
Jobs data a big concern
 
“The lack of reliable estimates on employment in recent years has impeded its measurement and thereby the Government faces challenges in adopting appropriate policy interventions,” chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian wrote in the 2016-2017 Economic Survey.
 
The survey acknowledged many limitations of India’s labour market data including “partial coverage, inadequate sample size, low frequency, long time lags, double counting, conceptual differences and definitional issues”.
 
While efforts are underway to gather more data regularly, a year after Subramanian noted the limitations of existing labour market data, it will be some time before there are enough time-series data to properly assess labour market trends.
 
Answering this basic question correctly–how many people enter India’s labour force every year–is fundamental to addressing the nation’s employment challenge.
 
That so many answer it incorrectly is symptomatic of another problem–the lack of regular, reliable, and recent labour market data on which to base policy.
 
The international (International Labour Organization model) estimates of the labour force, however, present a slightly different picture. As per World Development Indicators of the World Bank, India had a total workforce of 503.8 million in 2015. Between 2011-2016, on average, India added 6.6 million to the labour force per year.
 
Thus, using the Labour Bureau’s estimate of the average number of people being added to the workforce every year (just under five million between 2012 and 2015) and the World Bank’s estimate of the average number of people being added to the workforce every year (just under seven million between 2011 and 2016), one can estimate that roughly 5-7 million people are entering the Indian workforce on an annual basis.
 
The variation in national and international estimates can be attributed to differences in survey and computation methodology, and varying time periods of estimation that leads to inclusion or exclusion of seasonally employed persons in certain estimates.
 
Even at 4.75 million, India’s formal economy is not creating enough jobs to absorb those entering the labour market. The economy generated only 7 million jobs during this entire period, whereas 4.75 million were entering the labour force every year, according to this 2017 report by McKinsey Global Institute, a global private sector think-tank set up as the business and economics research arm of McKinsey & Company.
 
Getting data right is an imperative to diagnose the scope and scale of India’s jobs challenge and to ultimately and effectively address it.
 
(Dewan is the executive director of JustJobs Network, an applied research institution dedicated to finding strategies to address the jobs and skills challenge in India and abroad. She is also a Fellow with the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire.)
 
 

Hike in Fuel Prices: Petrol Prices Set to Reach All-Time High

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Rising fuel prices and accompanying inflation set to bring further woe to Indian consumers.

Fuel prices
 
Fuel prices have borne witness to steady hikes in the last five days. In the national capital, the price of petrol has reached Rs.75.61, whereas the all-time high is Rs.76.06. In Mumbai, the price has reached Rs 83.45 as opposed to the all-time high of Rs.83.62.
The all-time high petrol prices were reached in 2013, when the price of crude oil was about $112 a barrel; today the price of crude oil is about $72 a barrel.

International oil prices had begun descending since July 2014 – the period post the previous all-time high. The Modi government, which came to power in 2014 itself, instead of transferring the benefits of the reduction in prices then, decided to exploit the opportunity by using it to increase revenue and reduce the fiscal deficit.

The government had achieved this by hiking excise duty on auto fuels. This was done repeatedly, with the result being that that the majority of the benefit from falling international oil prices accruing to the government rather than the consumers. In the period from November 2014 to January 2016, excise duty on petrol and diesel was hiked nine times, totalling Rs.11.7 on petrol and Rs.13.47 on diesel. Similar practices were continued, and a Newsclick report in 2017 showed that the result of this was a doubling of the government’s tax revenue from petroleum products as a percentage of GDP.

With the rise in international oil prices, the country’s crude oil import bill is also expected to rise. An Economic Times report citing an Oil Ministry report expects the import bill to surge by 20 per cent in the financial year 2018-19. This can also disrupt the government’s fiscal math by requiring higher subsidies on petroleum. The accompanied fall in the rupee’s exchange rate will also affect the price of imports.

The rising oil prices will also affect the Indian economy through inflation. The price of oil, being a major input to the economy, can influence the economy and the resulting inflation would bring down the real disposable income of households and inflict further woe upon consumers.

Though the government had not been transferring the benefits of falling international prices to the consumer in the past and also not stemming hikes, for the 19 days prior to the Karnataka legislative assembly elections, the oil marketing companies brought about no hikes in the fuel prices. Now, for the past five days since the election, there have been daily hikes in the prices.

This latest price hike, which may bring prices to an all-time high and bring distress to consumers, comes at a time when there is already dissatisfaction with the NDA government’s policies. The country has been bearing witness to many protests by the farmers, workers and youth over the government’s economic policies, and the hike in prices can only bring about further agitation.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

 

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