Where Are the Jobs?

This is the seventh edition of The Jobscape, our weekly round-up of news and opinion on the state of employment and job creation in India. In this edition, we look at the jobs mantra during elections, the eternal promise of reservations, trade wars, Brexit, and Facebook trying to wash away its sins.Read more

India will stay relevant in Afghanistan, Taliban or no Taliban

The action is fast and furious. Taliban representatives have attended peace talks in Moscow for the first time. Almost simultaneously, the US special envoy has broken a taboo and opened direct talks with the Taliban office in Qatar. Pakistan has released one of the founding members of the Taliban after eight years. In Afghanistan itself, a US general has been wounded in a Taliban attack and there are daily reports of the ever-increasing numbers of Afghans getting killed by Taliban terrorists.Such is the fluid state of political affairs in Afghanistan today that these highly divergent events are all unfolding concurrently.Amidst all these fast-moving political developments, it was the Moscow round of talks that attracted the most attention in India. India has consistently maintained that it supports an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned reconciliation process. So, sending retired diplomats as observers at the Moscow round of talks naturally sparked speculation that India was reversing its policy on Afghanistan. Interestingly, some commentators have, in the past, accused India of doing exactly the opposite — blocking attempts by the Afghan government to negotiate with elements such as the Taliban.Read more here>

Towards global no-first use

While Modi government’s claims that India’s nuclear ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) carried out a deterrence patrol are exaggerated, it is a fact that we are getting closer to that milestone. The capability to launch nuclear-armed missiles from nuclear-powered submarines is widely regarded as the greatest form of deterrence a country can possess.Read more

How to Regulate Internet Platforms Without Breaking Them

The biggest anticompetitive element of platforms is the violation of neutrality. When the platform, such as Amazon, also acts as a player on the very platform, it can lead to a conflict of interest. Once vertically integrated, the platform has an incentive to exclude competitors either directly by delisting competing vendors or indirectly through higher commission fees and manipulating the rankings.

Anticompetitive mergers and acquisitions of platforms also tend to go under the radar, as competition authorities normally make the decision to investigate cases according to a monetary threshold. However, the monetary value of a deal may not always highlight its anticompetitive effects. Stories of big technology firms acquiring small start-ups at bargain prices are quite common. The value of these start-ups could lie in the networks (user bases) or the data they possess. Thus, it would make sense for competition authorities to automatically review any deal that involves an exchange of certain forms (or a certain quantity) of data. If this principle had been in place, Facebook’s acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram would have come under greater scrutiny.

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Vote For Jobs

This is the sixth edition of The Jobscape, our weekly round-up of news and opinion on the state of employment and job creation in India. In this edition, we look at political party manifestos, the effects of DeMon, and how companies are upskilling their employees.Read more

India’s smartphone revolution is a phenomenon on the scale of Independence in 1947

Media headlines reporting research results often distort findings — substituting ‘newsworthiness’ for accuracy. The newsworthiness falls into two broad categories: “Whatever you thought you knew about this subject is completely wrong” or “research confirms what we knew to be right all along”. So, when a headline on BBC World this week announced that “a rising tide of nationalism in India is driving ordinary citizens to spread fake news”, we should wonder which of the two newsworthy categories it falls into.Unless you’ve been blissfully living under a rock somewhere without internet, the BBC’s principal claims aren’t too surprising: A lot of fake news that is circulated seeks to promote pride in national identity; Right-wing networks are better organised to push such narratives; and finally, there is “overlap of fake news sources on Twitter and support networks of Prime Minister Narendra Modi”.Now, your decision to believe and forward a particular tweet, image, or text message depends on four things: What you believe must be true (conditioning and bias); what you’ve said about it in the past (history); what others in your groups are saying (social proof); and what someone you respect says (authority). Your “fast brain” processes all of this in less than a second, and your fingers do the forwarding immediately after. You don’t look for evidence, you don’t look for counter-claims, and very often, you don’t even reflect on what you’ve read and forwarded. In fact, you don’t use the “slow brain” at all, because you’ve scrolled down and moved on to the next message. Don’t feel bad. You are not alone. Most of us are like that.Read more

Jobs From Abroad

This is the fifth edition of The Jobscape, our weekly round-up of news and opinion on the state of employment and job creation in India. In this edition, we look at how international trade creates jobs in India, how many ‘Australias’ of jobs India has to generate, our abysmal gender bias, and job scams.Read more

India has Statues of Celebrity, Duality and of course, Gandhi’s Statues of Ubiquity

If it is the world’s tallest statue of one of the Indian republic’s greatest leaders and promoted by its most powerful contemporary one, it will, of course, receive a lot of public attention. But unless you are the Nizam of Hyderabad or some other reluctant prince who had to be, er, strongly persuaded to accede to the Indian Union, you won’t be opposed to a statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.You might, however, be either amused or dismayed by the BJP’s appropriation of Patel and his misprojection as an anti-thesis of former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. The great leaders of India’s independence movement did not operate in the small-minded manner as the current ones do — they certainly had differences of opinion but were for the most part respectful of each other in public. Patel and Nehru had different backgrounds, worldviews, and temperaments, but did not allow their differences to descend into the low politics of rumour and squabble. If Patel united the territory of India, Nehru united its people, and together with the other stalwarts of that generation created this great republic.Read more

The Xinjiang Playbook

To blunt criticism about its policies in the Xinjiang region, the Chinese Communist Party has adopted a set of measures ranging from denial to opinion management.

A cursory scan through Chinese State media talks about the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region as a place that’s becoming more secure, where tourism is booming, infrastructure is getting upgraded and poverty is reducing. That’s the Xinjiang that Beijing wants the world to talk about. Unfortunately for the Chinese leadership, that hasn’t been the case over the past few months.In mid-August, experts from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination questioned the policies adopted by the Chinese Party-state with regard to the Uighur population in Xinjiang. Members of the committee argued that there had been credible reports that, “upwards of a million people were being held in so-called counter-extremism centres and another two million had been forced into so-called ‘re-education camps’ for political and cultural indoctrination.” All this, of course, is being done in the name of stability and combating extremism and terrorism.Situated in northwestern China bordering the stans to the west, Xinjiang is home to over 11.3 million ethnic Uighurs. These are largely Muslims of Turkic origin, who have their own language and culture. The region is also home to roughly one-third of China’s natural gas and oil reserves, along with key mineral deposits. In addition, Xinjiang is the Belt and Road Initiative’s gateway to the West. Given this, stability and integration i.e. policing and sinicisation, have been key planks of the Communist Party’s policies in Xinjiang. These assumed greater significance as the security situation in the region deteriorated early in President Xi Jinping’s first term and in the backdrop of the escalating conflict in Syria.Read more here>

Who Wants a Sarkari Naukri?

This is the fourth edition of The Jobscape, our weekly round-up of news and opinion on the state of employment and job creation in India. In this edition, we look at a range of jobs from tech and AI and how to eradicate manual scavenging.Read more

India moved on so quickly from Amritsar rail tragedy that it forgot to ask key questions

Less than two weeks have passed since the horrific tragedy near Amritsar where 59 of the people celebrating Dussehra on railway tracks were killed, and over 100 more injured, by a passing train. Yet, like many other such tragedies in India, it has already disappeared from public discourse.A simple analysis using Google Trends shows that interest in the Amritsar tragedy peaked on 20 October, a day after the accident, and sharply declined over the next few days. In fact, by 23 October, searches for Amritsar tragedy fell below that for “Narendra Modi”, indicating that Indians had moved on. Just for context, more people were searching for “Virat Kohli” than for the accident in a mere two days after its occurrence. If we always knew that we, the people, didn’t care much for the loss of lives in accidents, we now have nice charts to show for it. The people affected, their loved ones, the citizens of Amritsar and the people of Punjab will, in decreasing order of time, remember the tragedy. The rest of us will move on.Read more

The addictive nature of bad policies

Al Capone, the infamous prohibition-era US gangster, once remarked, “I am like any other man, all I do is supply a demand.” In Bihar, the smuggling supply chain has already been well established. Around 6.5 lakh raids have been conducted and 1.22 lakh people have been arrested. Altogether, 16.4 lakh litres of Indian-made foreign liquor and around 12.4 lakh litres of various types of country liquor have been seized so far since the law was enacted in 2016. The seizures and arrests reflect the prevalence of the problem. Some of the seized illicit liquor started disappearing from police stations as well.

Further, crime statistics also betray the ineffectiveness of the law. Total cognisable crimes rose 11% in April 2016 to December 2017 period compared to the same period before prohibition. Crimes related to other prohibited substances have increased as well.

There are also significant socioeconomic losses. At least 35,000 direct jobs have been lost as 21 alcohol manufacturing plants and 5,500 retail outlets have been shut down. Add to this the number of indirect jobs lost, because of forward and backward linkages, and the number becomes daunting. For instance, tourism in Bihar has taken a hit. The food and beverage sector revenue declined by around 30%. Room occupancy rates have drastically fallen and corporate conferences and events have almost completely stopped.

Finally, as expected, Bihar’s finances have taken a toll. The 2017-18 financial year saw an approximate loss of ₹5,500 crore because of lost revenue from excise and value-added tax (VAT). To compensate for this, the Bihar government has raised the VAT on 600 other items and has also resorted to higher state borrowing, which has pushed up the fiscal deficit. The loss in revenue from taxing alcohol has also impacted government expenditure. Expenditure across crucial sectors, such as education, pension, health, and energy was much lower than the budgeted figure. The political parties promising prohibition in Madhya Pradesh are also promising a farm loan waiver, another bad policy that is contagious. Funding a farm loan waiver, while losing out on the excise revenue, would derail state finances.

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The Answer is Blockchain

This is the third edition of The Jobscape, our fortnightly round-up of news and opinion on the state of employment and job creation in India. In this edition, Industry 4.0 holds a lot of hope for the future of jobs.Read more 

Jamal Khashoggi’s murder an opportunity for Turkey to be Sunni powerhouse of Middle East

The murder of one-time Saudi regime insider and columnist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul has become riveting for many reasons. The mysterious circumstances around Khashoggi’s death inside the Saudi consulate, the gruesome manner in which he was done away with, the place w+here it all happened, and the key players in the aftermath and their potential fates are playing out in international affairs over the past two weeks. Added to these ingredients is the masterfully tantalising manner in which the Turkish government has played the narrative.Khashoggi’s murder may have started out as an extraordinarily miscalculated external move in Saudi domestic politics, but has already become – if Turkey’s president has his way – a pivotal moment, both in the regional tussle for dominance and the global play for leadership of the Islamic world.Read more

The many ways India must NOT think about China

One of the positive trends in India’s think tank community in the past few years is the emergence of institutes that aim to study China. Last week, journalist Nitin Gokhale reported that the ministry of external affairs has set up a new think tank that includes members from intelligence, defence, and trade. The higher education system has invested in setting up a few new centres that will observe and analyse China from various perspectives and purposes. This ought to have started at least a decade ago, but better late than never.Many educated Indians can name at least half a dozen states of the United States and their respective capitals. Bengaluru and Hyderabad are likely to score higher on this test. However, even among the more informed Indians, it is hard to find people who can name a few Chinese provinces. Similarly, a lot of Indians know excruciating details about the US political system, can identify US administration officials, senators, and governors. But few will know the name of a third Chinese leader after President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang. Language, openness, and greater people-to-people interaction are perhaps responsible for this asymmetry, but it is astonishing – and a matter of concern – that an average well-informed Indian knows relatively little about the big neighbour to our north. Our knowledge of China is dangerously inverse to the country’s importance to us.Read more

Empowerment and Fragility

Zeynep Tufecki’s book, Twitter and Tear Gas, is an insightful analysis of the impact of social media on protests and social movements in today’s radically networked societies.

Most of the commentary about the role of social media in creating political communities either glorifies these media platforms (think Arab Spring) or vilifies them for their propensity to spread fake news and to create echo chambers (think Trump’s election campaign). Zeynep Tufecki’s book, Twitter and Tear Gas, however, provides a much-needed nuanced analysis on how digital platforms have altered the way in which a social movement’s dynamics play out. With the aim of understanding the challenges and strengths of digital activism, Tufecki tells a fascinating story of how social media empowers protests while simultaneously also exacerbating the fragilities of these movements.It is well known by now that the primary strength of networked public protests is the speed with which a large number of people and resources can be mobilised. This is because social media makes it easy to find people who share your political viewpoints even across geographical boundaries. What is not obvious, however, is that the speed and ease of participation also become a weakness of the networked movements. This is because ad hoc planning doesn’t allow for building capacities among protesters, which is needed to sustain a movement in the long-term. Often this results in the networked movements facing a tactical freeze in the face of changing circumstances.Read more here>

China’s big plan for AI domination is dazzling the world, but it has dangers built in. Here’s what India needs to watch out for.

In June, Niti Aayog published a discussion paper arguing that India has a significant stake in the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution and therefore needs to evolve a national AI strategy. The document examined policies and strategies issued by a number of countries that could inform the Indian approach.

China has been one of the early movers in the AI space, and evaluating its approach towards AI development can help identify important lessons for Indian policymakers and entrepreneurs.

In July 2017, China’s State Council published its AI plan, outlining the goal of becoming the world’s primary AI innovation centre by 2030. This is a comprehensive vision document, unlike “strategies” or “policies” put out by other key global players.

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Why there is an increasingly global pushback against China…

For some strange reason, many people in the world believe that China’s leaders are astute but inscrutable strategists, with an unusual ability to both think long-term and do long-term. Why do I say strange? Well, look at the scorecard as it stands today.

First, from well before the global financial crisis of 2008, China had begun deliberately antagonising every single one of its large neighbours and bullying the smaller ones. This pushed countries from as far as North America, Australia, the Western Pacific, and the Indian subcontinent together into a closer embrace. Now, these happen to include the world’s strongest military, economic and technological powers.

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In its sixth decade, R&AW needs to look at the world outside terrorism

Without HUMINT assets, it will gradually become only a collection agency and not an anticipatory agency

The Research & Analysis Wing, the department I served in for 37 years, is 50. It came into being on September 21, 1968, following a realisation that intelligence had been inadequate during the 1962 Indo-China conflict. This year is also the 100th year of the birth of its first chief, the legendary R N Kao.It was one of the first such post-Independence structures created for a specific need, much like the nuclear establishment and ISRO. It owes much to the vision of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who recognised that a modern state needed an agency for external intelligence.Indira Gandhi chose Kao, then in the Intelligence Bureau (IB), to set up a specialised and independent organisation. V Balachandran, in his excellent commentary on the R&AW on its 50th anniversary (‘Struggling to preserve ‘Kaoboys’ legacy’, The Tribune, September 30, 2018), writes ‘Kao told me that the only advice Indira Gandhi gave him in 1968 was not to structure the new organisation as a Central Police Organisation (CPO). In this she did not mean to deride police work but that foreign intelligence needed something more than police skills. Police is a hierarchical and transparent organisation, accountable to law and society for their actions’..….whereas foreign intelligence often operates outside the law.Read more here>

Is the Jobs Crisis a Skills Crisis?

This is the second edition of The Jobscape, our fortnightly round-up of news and opinion on the state of employment and job creation in India. In this edition, there’s good news from renewable energy and the gig economy — but with a caveat: the skilling gap.Read more