Editorial 1: The hunger Challenge
Recent Context:
- Recently, on the India’s 77th Independence Day, Prime Minister said that in the last five years, from 2015-16 to 2019-21, government has lifted 135 million people out of poverty.
- This is a commendable achievement based on the Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MDPI) prepared by the NITI Aayog.
- The UNDP had earlier estimated that India lifted 415 million people out of poverty (MDPI) over the period 2005-06 to 2019-21.
Historical perspective of poverty reduction
- After political freedom, the first and foremost job of an elected government is to reduce poverty, hunger, and malnutrition.
- During the time of independence more than 80 per cent of people were in extreme poverty, which today hovers around 15 per cent as per MDPI and about 11 per cent based on income criterion ($2.15 PPP).
- As, the year 1991 was a watershed moment in India’s economic history when India started shifting from a state-controlled to a market-oriented economy.
- It started paying rich dividends after a few years of transitional adjustments. The biggest achievement is in foreign exchange reserves that hover around $600 billion, up from a meagre $ 1.4 billion in July 1991.
- It has made the Indian economy much more resilient to any external shocks. In the absence of this, India could have been in a similar crisis as some of our neighbours like Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Challenges related to poverty, hunger and malnutrition
- India seems to be on track to almost abolish poverty in the next five to 10 years.
- On hunger, at least in terms of food availability, India has done well. The Green Revolution turned India from a “ship to mouth” economy to the largest exporter of rice. It has also enabled India to give free rice or wheat (5kg/month/person) to more than 800 million people under the PM Garib Kalyan Yojana, thus improving their economic access to basic staples.
- India also experienced the White Revolution (milk) and emerged as the largest producer of milk (222 MT)
- The gene revolution in cotton that was triggered by then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s decision in 2002 to introduce Bt cotton, made India the largest producer of cotton (39 million bales in 2013-14, up from just 13 million bales in 2002-03).
- But malnutrition is still alarming issue, especially amongst children below the age of five. As per NFHS-5 (2019-21), 32 per cent of children were underweight, 35 per cent stunted, and 19 per cent wasted.
- Although India made reasonably good progress in reducing infant mortality from 57 per cent in 2005-06 to 35 per cent in 2019-21, the progress on other indicators of malnutrition is not very satisfactory. This is a real challenge for the government.
- Along with it, climate change and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events, from heat waves to flash floods, pose a big challenge not only to India’s food system but also to poverty alleviation gains could reverse with these shocks.
How to deal with poverty, hunger and malnutrition related challenges
- Maintaining the economic growth: keep focus on accelerating economic growth and making it more inclusive. So that all sections of society get benefit out of it.
- Promoting gender led development: Gender-led development in India will lead to progress in multiple socio-cultural and economic sphere.
- India having more women pilots than any other country.
- Along with giving training to women in 15,000 self-help groups, and these women will fly drones for agriculture use.
- Enhancing the participation of women in labour force:
- women’s participation rate in our labour force (age group 15-59 years), it is pitiably low at about 30 per cent (2021-22).
- There is need to focus on improving the literacy rate and providing quality education to young women, along with their skill formation, several of India’s problems, especially poverty, hunger and malnutrition can be solved
- Incentivise and improve the access and quality of education for women through liberal scholarships, especially after 10th grade to Master’s level
- As studies found that women’s education beyond 12th grade is a key determinant of nutrition amongst children, as is access to better sanitation and more nutritious food.
- Improving productivity in agriculture while making food more nutritious and the food system more climate resilient.
Conclusion:
- Therefore, a gender-sensitive growth that coupled with an increase in farm productivity can help end malnutrition.
Editorial 2: Preparing for disruption
Context:
- As per study, the global generative AI market is projected to experience explosive growth in the coming years, with a 45 per cent compound annual growth rate expected from 2021 through 2028.
- As the commoditization of AI services becomes more widespread, the business models of industries, from software development to entertainment will change drastically.
Wide areas of application of AI:
- LLMs (Large Language Models) and Generative AI are set to automate various tasks that require natural language understanding – for instance, summarisation, translation, answering questions, coding, and even conversation.
- AI-powered coding assistants like GitHub Copilot, Amazon and ChatGPT are rapidly gaining popularity and helping developers undertake routine tasks, freeing them to focus on more complex issues.
Potent challenges that come with AI development:
- There will be significant economic challenges such as the
- disruption of markets
- creation of inequalities
- reduction of incentives for human creativity and innovation, and
- displacement of workers.
- This will create hundreds of millions of unemployed skilled and semi-skilled workers. It will also impact developed and developing nations differently.
- Lack of transparency of AI tools: AI decisions are not always intelligible to humans.
- AI is not neutral: AI-based decisions are susceptible to inaccuracies, discriminatory outcomes, embedded or inserted bias.
- Surveillance practices for data gathering and privacy of court users.
Steps need to be taken to address AI related challenges
- Reskill the workforce: there is need for funding and incentivisation of the transition of workers by helping them gain new technical skills should be a high priority
- Adopting policy and legal measures
- Policy and legal measures that help workers with the transition, severance payments, advance notice of automation and restrictions on discriminatory AI systems are necessary.
- Providing the tax benefits to companies for retaining the workers:
- The state can also think of providing tax breaks and other incentives to help businesses retrain workers
- Providing safety net to workers:
- Enhancement in social safety nets may require changes in pensions, insurance, and employment rules.
- These new social safety nets should recalibrate unemployment benefits, perhaps even think of unemployment insurance, create income supplement opportunities (maybe as a temporary measure), and create job placement services to help displaced workers apply for new roles
- Promoting the coordination between academia and industry in India
- India seems to lack a comprehensive and composite AI strategy that connects government, industry, academia, and society
- Investing in the AI based research and development
Way forward: If India has to proactively utilised the gains from these disruptive technologies and adapt to the changes in the economy, society, and everyday life, it should do the following
- One, develop a comprehensive national AI strategy that connects stakeholders to provide a roadmap for responsible AI deployment. Increase funding for AI research.
- Two, establish AI policy think tanks and research institutes to foster AI innovation and nurture talent.
- Three, incentivise businesses to invest in AI R&D and support workers’ training for the changing technological landscape.
- Four, implement policies to protect workers from job displacement and enhance social safety nets.
- Five, foster collaborations between academia, industry, and internationally to develop responsible real-life AI applications and stay updated on best practices.
Conclusion:
- Artificial Intelligence will drive digital transformation across sectors and have a vast and lasting impact on the society and economy of India.
- AI has the potential to significantly transform industries like healthcare, agriculture, education, etc
- Therefore, Indian need to adopt comprehensive national AI strategy with the multi-stakeholder approach so that Indian can reap the benefit of AI effectively and timely.