77% of workforce will be In vulnerable employment By 2019

• In the recent past a report indicates the falling value of wage labour against the accumulation of wealth as dividends and share capital. Another report hints towards the dismal conditions in which Indian workers are forced to work and eke a living.
• An ILO report estimates that over 77% of the active workforce (not counting the unemployed) will be in vulnerable employment by 2019. ‘Vulnerable employment’ is defined as as self-employed without paid employees and contributing family workers. In India ‘vulnerable employment’ encompasses contractual workers in the organised sector and workers in the unorganised sector. 
• Grave conditions exist in which the workers, producing high value branded garments, are forced to work in Bangalore. It also reports that women are lured by false promises of wages and held under pressure to work for low wages.
• A major labour reform is being pushed by the corporate sector to formalise the contract labour system that enables ‘fixed-term employment’ by industries. The new labour rules would allow the companies to shift the risk of the business cycle on the workers. This allows companies with less than 300 workers to close down or retrench workers without prior notice and approval. Presently in most states, the limit is set at below 100 workers.
• The complex tax regime with multiple exemptions leads to a skewed burden of taxes. It identifies that apart from allowing larger companies to pay a much lower rate of tax than smaller companies, exemptions for accelerated depreciation incentivises capital-intensive production rather than the use of labour. The effective tax rate for companies with turnover less than Rs. 1 crore is above 30% while companies that make over Rs. 500 crores pay less than 26% in taxes.
• The UK - India Business Council (UKIBC) and the Confederation of British Industry have together written to the Indian government seeking a lowering of corporate taxes and implementing reforms to further dilute labour laws. The lobby groups have argued that such measures would improve the ease of doing business in India and also help increase British investments in India.
• The workers had been working in abysmal conditions for meagre wages ranging from Rs. 6000/- to Rs. 10000/-. The reasons for accidental deaths go beyond violations of norms but is more systemic. Women suffer disproportionately as they are exposed to informal work. A labour activist points out that labour laws are brazenly violated.
• Trade unions have staged demonstrations and road rokko in various cities of Tamil Nadu voicing their dissent against the central and state government’s economic policies. The demands included a raise in minimum wage to a living wage, end to contractualisation and ‘anti-labour’ policies, the protests focussed on price rise, hike in transport fares in Tamil Nadu and the dismantling of the Public Distribution System which has been the hallmark of the welfare system in Tamil Nadu.
• Belying the opinion that India is creating far fewer jobs (or even bleeding jobs), a new report, published by a professor of economics at IIM Bangalore and Chief Economic Advisor of SBI, has concluded that we are headed towards creating 7 million (70 lakh) jobs by the end of the financial year 2017-18. This has led to a furious debate over the issue of job creation in India in the last few years.
• The biases that could have crept into the data is that the threshold of 20 employees for EPFO registration might lead to a false growth when a company that has 19 workers increases its payroll by 1. While the net increase is just 1, EPFO will record a growth of 20. It also does not delete accounts immediately when jobs are lost. An amnesty scheme announced two years back has brought in many workers into the ambit. This cannot be claimed as new employment. Thus, EPFO is not the best source to estimate net growth in jobs. 
• It is argued that at a time when the economy has been jolted by shocks such as Demonetisation and GST implementation that have adversely affected the unorganised sector, it cannot be ‘wished away’ by cherry-picking data. 

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The attitude of our central & state governments to dole what ever concessions MNCs ask to set up their manufacturing units in the name of generating some jobs and indirect economic benefits is fundamentally defective. These industries apart from tax concessions will have to be given land at throw away prices ruining the poor farmers but also precious resources like water & electricity are to be diverted for their use. The pollution and climatic impact and industrial waste dumped in our land fills is incalculable. The cultural impact is another thing. If these negatives are loaded to the benefits, the net benefit would be negative. Labor reforms exposing workers to be exploited by these industries is nothing but height of insanity. Unlike IT employees these workers whenever they are retrenched getting alternate jobs wouldn't be easy and the agony they and their families undergo in the absence of robust social security is unimaginable. Therefore we should do what ever is good for our society especially poorer classes. No point in solving one problem and creating a much bigger problem.

Unorganised sector has large hidden potential for job creation

• Unorganised sector's large hidden potential for job creation is the best hope for India.
• Every politician and economist talks about 'development' and 'job creation' all the times but nothing much has happened during past 5 years.
• Unemployment rate is stable mainly due to falling labour participation rates among children and women. Also because of hidden unemployment due to unemployed getting engaged as casual workers or absorption in family enterprises and underemployment of many workers.
• Despite youth bulge in population there is no youth bulge in workforce and hence there is no demographic dividend.
• We have large number of poorly educated workers.
• Employment conditions will improve with an increase in the share of organised sector.
• Earnings per worker improved by 2.3% in organised sector and 4.2% in unorganised sector between 1999-2000 and 2011-12 but gender equality in the work declined.
• Recent trends show unemployment increase from 3.8% (2011-12) to 5% (2015-16) due 5 million 'employment loss'.

How large is the job gap? How soon can India reach a point where there is no hidden unemployment and all who want work can find it at a fair wage and decent work conditions?

• Current surplus labour at 117 million (52 million who can be withdrawn without loss of production, anther 52 million who are not at present in labour force but are able and willing to work and 13 million who are reported unemployed)
• Annual additions would be about 6-8 million.  
• Can we absorb about 16 million a year in decent work and reach full employment by 2030?
• China's model of export driven job creation looks less attractive due to global slow down, growing protectionism and growth of robotics and automation.
• Growth in manufacturing with matching skill development, infrastructure construction, urban development, housing, information technology, investment in energy will produce many jobs but far less than availability.
• The organised sector can't deliver jobs on the scale required. Job creation requires skill development for productivity enhancement.
• Powerful trade unions are able to take care of very limited proportion of workers.
• Labour reforms are required to ensure fair wages, competition and decent work conditions.
• Wages of production workers declined from 15.4% of GVA (2000-01) to 8.5% (2011-12) in unorganised sector.
• Vast majority of workers in unorganised sector lack security and suffer wage differentiation by caste, community, gender, geography for identical tasks.
• Some reforms for protection and wage determination of workers in unorganised sector are necessary. Labour policy must address inequity and exploitation issues. 
• For India to meet its job creation obligations, unorganised sector, with growth, reform and modernisation, is big hope with tremendous hidden potential. 

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Unorganised sector, as its name suggests, doesn't follow many rules & processes and are outside income tax department lens. But its ability to provide vast number jobs fuels economic growth and contributes a lot in the form of indirect taxes. The recent demonetisation & GST proclaims formalisation of informal sector but in reality it has destroyed unorganised sector and that is evident from loss of 5 million livelihoods and GDP growth drooping from 9.1% to 5.7% and government(s) going penniless. But as they grow over time they themselves will migrate into formal sector with increased revenues, profits and benefits of formal sector. It makes sense for government(s) to allow this sector to function without fear or reverence, who will eventually become good tax payers too.

Agriculture sector with land reforms, land aggregation & cooperative farming, farm mechanisation, efficient & assured irrigation, rain water harvesting & ground water table increasing, remunerative pricing, crop insurance, efficient markets, quality inputs, warehousing & cold storages, food processing units etc will enhance rural development and reduce rural urban migration etc.

Education: What is its purpose?

What is the purpose of education? If you were to ask a small group of teachers, administrators, students, parents, etc to address this question, how difficult it would be to reach a consensus?

• No matter what ever global problem you are dreading, the solutions always include education, never is it without an education component and sometimes cannot be done without education.
• Education is to teach creative and analytical thinking. To spark curiosity, imagination, and love of lifetime learning. Education is a lifetime journey, not a destination or a transaction.
• The purpose of education is prepare our children for higher education, teach them to navigate social interactions with peers from different backgrounds, and to help them become tax paying members of society. 
• Should young people become educated to get prepared to enter the workforce, or should the purpose of education be focused more on social, academic, cultural and intellectual development so that students can grow up to be engaged citizens? Education should prepare young people for life, work and citizenship.
• No matter what progress is made to shift the practices and content of daily classroom instruction, inequity will continue to be a substantial limiting factor. Real sustainable improvement depends on addressing inequity in areas such as well-paid employment, health care, food, and housing security. You can’t have one without the others.
• In the US, historically, the purpose of education has evolved according to the needs of society. Education's primary purpose has ranged from instructing youth in religious doctrine, to preparing them to live in a democracy, to assimilating immigrants into mainstream society, to preparing workers for the workplace.
• And now, as educators prepare young people for their futures in a world that is rapidly changing, to create adults who can compete in a global economy? To create lifelong learners? To create emotionally healthy adults who can engage in meaningful relationships?
• Most college men have a misconception of the purpose of education. Most of them think that education should equip them with the proper instruments of exploitation so that they can forever trample over the masses. 
• Some others think that education should furnish them with noble ends rather than means to an end.
• Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life.
• School education should prepare students for life - for college, for work, for living within a family and within a community, and for participating effectively in the democratic process.
• Schools have always been about developing students for life and work. And life is much more than earning a living; it is also living a life.
• A great majority of the so-called educated people do not think logically and scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from the morass of propaganda is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.
• The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.
• Intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character -- that is the goal of true education. 
• If we are not careful, our colleges will produce a group of close-minded, unscientific, illogical propagandists, consumed with immoral acts.

Education is really aimed at helping students get to the point 

where they can learn on their own ... Noam Chomsky.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know ... Albert Einstein

I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people ... Newton

My View:
Education does not have a single purpose; it serves multiple objectives, and the relative importance of each of these objectives can be very personal. Education is to support children in developing the skills, the knowledge, and the dispositions that will allow them to be responsible, contributing members of their community. To be a good friend, to be a good mate, to be able to work, and to contribute to the well-being of the community. Children should learn civic knowledge and master civic skills, respecting others, working collaboratively, acting in a way that is fair and just, and being an active participant in the life of the community. Greed of money and power, if not desisted, destroys an educated person to a great extent. Today, the world is suffering due to the greed of educated and superiority complex of unworthy.