Agnipath: Securing the Saviours

Geography is important for Indian defence. Indian Peninsula is a distinct landmass. The country lays beautifully divided by the Tropic of Cancer in almost two equal halves with one part land-locked and embroidered with some of the greatest mountain ranges of the World, while the other lies submerged in water surrounded by 3 different oceans. As India rises as one of the promising Asian Superpowers and one among global leaders at large, having a strong defence ecosystem occupies a center-stage in terms of peace, security and geopolitics. India’s massive efforts to bolster its defence manufacturing capabilities, increase defence acquirements, enhanced patrolling, radar and exercises, changes in defence training and recruitments, encouragement to domestic defence manufacturers, allocation of increased defence funds, etc. are all for the bigger picture and future readiness.

Implementation of ‘Agnipath’- an attractive and transformative defence recruitment scheme of the Government of India, may prove to be a game changer for the Indian defence system. Now, soldiers recruited in the defence forces under this recruitment policy, will be termed as ‘Agniveers’ – a distinct rank in the Armed Forces, different from any other existing ranks. Under the new scheme, government is trying to create a youthful profile of the Armed forces. This way the newly recruited youth would be better able to be trained with newer technologies, which has enough prospects to transform the armed forces into youthful, techno- savvy and modern because even an infantry soldier now needs to be technologically advanced to use the whole range of weapons and communication devices. The scheme envisages to reduce the average age profile of Indian Armed forces by about 4-5 years.

‘Agniveer’ is going to be a part of the future-ready soldier and after 4 years of service, they will stand out in crowd with their attitude, skills, discipline and sense of timing and responsibilities. Under the new system, those wishing to work in the army for only a few years, can do so with a different aptitude and attitude towards life, society and nation building. Now aspirants between the ages of 17.5 years and 21 years will be eligible to apply and the recruitment standards will remain the same, with recruitment rallies to be organised twice a year. This scheme is set to give a better opportunity to the youth who choose to serve the nation as their full time job.

One of the reasons behind this revolutionary move may be an attempt to reduce the growing pension payout. But strengthening the connection between society and the military and instilling nationalism among the youth by providing an opportunity to fulfill their aspiration of serving in the Armed Forces, is of much more significance. Further, Agniveers will be given an attractive customised monthly package along with ‘Risk and Hardship’ allowances as applicable in the three services. After completion of the engagement period of 4 years, Agniveers will be accorded with the one time ‘SevaNidhi’ package.

Agniveers, selected for enrolment in the Indian Armed Forces as regular cadre, would be required to serve for the engagement period of minimum 15 years and he/she will be governed by the existing terms and conditions of service of Junior Commissioned Officers/other ranks in Indian Army and their equivalent in Indian Navy and Indian Air Force and that of Non Combatant enrolled in the Indian Air Force. 46,000 Agniveers are likely to be recruited under the first phase of recruitment.

Once selected, the aspirants will go through training for six months and then they will be deployed for three and a half years. During this period, they will be provided an attractive monthly package of Rs 30,000 per month with upgradation upto Rs 40,000 per month in 4th year. Importantly, during this period, 30% of their salary will be set aside under a ‘Seva Nidhi’ programme, and the government will contribute an equal amount every month along with providing accrue interest. At the end of the four-year period, Agniveer will be accorded Rs 11.71 lakh as a lump sum amount, which will be tax-free. Additionally, they will also get a Rs 48 lakh life insurance cover for the four years.

Sporting New Attitude towards Sports

India’s relatively better performance at the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics showcased that sports in India is no longer dominated by Cricket alone. Seven medals in the Olympics and 19 in Paralympics demonstrate amply that there is a lot of potential for other sports in the nation. Government support and schemes like TOPS have ensured that the nation can achieve new heights. These successes seem to have ushered in new and big development in the Indian Games and sports Arena.

Playing any sport at the highest level becomes very expensive, requiring a sense of financial security to perform at the peak. Hence, youngsters from the middle class and the poor strata of the society, who constitute majority of the youth, were earlier found to be averse to sports as parents too often discouraged them from professionally pursuing sports. Hence, financial assistance is a major part of the sports promotion programmes, under which Rs. 6.28 lakh is allocated for each residential athlete training at the accredited academies as per the annual Khelo India scholarship scheme. It includes an out of the pocket allowance of Rs 1.20 lakh. The government is setting up 1,000 Khelo India centres, which will further give a big boost to sports.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has brought a crucial mindset change and introduced numerous policies that have allowed innumerable youngsters to fulfill their dream of pursuing sports as a career. In Tokyo Olympics, 2020, India won 7 Medals total, 1 Gold, 2 Silver and 4 Bronze medals, registering the best ever performance at the Olympics. In Paralympics too, India won a record 19 medals with 5 Gold, 8 Silver and 6 Bronze medals. The number of medals won in this edition of the Paralympics is higher than India’s medals in all previous editions put together. Further, at the recently concluded Thomas Cup, the Indian Men’s Badminton team defeated 14-time title holder Indonesia to lift the winning trophy. PM Modi’s heartwarming interaction with the champions of the sports person also enthuse them a lot, showing India’s sports profile rising consistently across different sports, which is not merely a coincidence.

For the TOPS programme (Target Olympic Podium Scheme) the government specifically aims to identify athletes with great potential and enable customised and high-quality training and facilities for them, so that their focus remains on excellence in the arena rather than on fighting to get facilities unlike earlier. Under the scheme, the government takes full responsibility for foreign training of athletes, which includes their lodging, nutrition, equipment and international competitions in foreign countries besides a monthly stipend of Rs. 50,000 for each athlete.

Khelo India programme has been a huge success when it comes to harnessing the untapped potential of scores of youth especially from the rural and semi-urban areas. The programme comprises a clutch of schemes that form an important initiative to encourage sportspersons right from the grassroots. It aims at infusing sports culture and achieving sporting excellence. The Khelo India programme includes playfield development, community coaching development, promotion of community sports, the establishment of a strong sports competition structure at both school and university levels and filling up critical gaps in sports infrastructure including the creation of hubs of sports excellence in universities.

As India pulls its socks by way of providing sports infrastructure at the grassroots level to help athletes to become professional, seeds are sown seeds of a bright sports future for the country. The post-COVID world, where health and fitness is getting prioritised above everything, sports and games too are set to achieve record highs and new pursuers across the globe like never before. A strong preparation and setting up world-class infrastructure to cater to future sports stars becomes all relevant in such times.

India has made extensive efforts in recent years to transform the creative energy of the youth in the country, which have also resulted in grabbing gold in international sports and a well noticeable shift in the career preference of the youth and priorities of the parents. Plans like Khelo India scheme, TOPS, assistance to National Sports Federations, special awards to winners in international sports events and their coaches, national sports awards, pension to meritorious sports persons, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay National Sports Welfare Fund, National Sports Development Fund and running sports training centres through Sports Authority of India are fast changing the sports scenario.

Preserving languages – use it or lose it

Extinction of a Language is not merely phrases and letters lost in the mists of time, but a form of cultural suicide as with a language gone, mankind loses out on great skills, learnings, wisdom, ideas, innovations, artistry, and first-hand ancestral experiences and inventions. In a remarkable development, the United Nations General Assembly has adopted a resolution on multilingualism. The resolution promoted the UN’s Department of Global Communications to use both official and non-official languages, including Bangla, Hindi, and Urdu, in its communications.

This could become a reality given India’s efforts since 2018 to get these languages to have a stature that they deserve, putting special focus on the use of Hindi at the United Nations. “Hindi @ UN’ project was launched in 2018 with an objective to enhance the public outreach of the United Nations in the Hindi language, and to spread greater awareness about global issues among millions of Hindi-speaking populations around the world,” said India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador TS Tirumurti.

Language is the most potent and important invention of ingenious mankind. Languages are the tool to code the stories of human endeavours evolving over edges and are the best source of scientific and practical knowledge, wisdom, values and awareness of surroundings. The diversity of languages around the globe beautifully signify the versatility, uniqueness and robustness of human societies. India is blessed with a heritage which nurtures diversity and its languages.

Diversity is what defines nature and human diversity leads to more holistic growth. Even same kind of crops, if planted on the same land over and over again, makes the land unfit for agriculture and nonnutritive. Connected with the world by three oceans and more through the passes of mountains, the Indian Peninsula has welcomed foreign establishments, cultures, rules, leaders and faiths, adding more to India’s diverse heritage and cultural wealth. India is a kaleidoscope of umpteen varieties of cultures, food, traditions, artistry, religious beliefs and languages, products of the long history and unique geography of this land. Such a distinctive mix makes India’s diversity unparallelled in the world. Over the millenniums, the laws of diversity have permeated into the very core of the nature of the Indian subcontinent.

Today, more than 19,500 languages or dialects (analysis of a census released in 2018) that are spoken in India as mother tongues, help it to think and act for all, strategically, economically, socially, geo-politically and spiritually. This official addition of Hindi and Bengali at UN also makes perfect sense in a world where after Mandarin, Spanish & English, Hindi stands at the 4th-most widely spoken language globally (~4.429% of World pop.) followed by Bengali which ranks 5 in the list (~4.00% of World pop.). Also, for now, a UN News-Hindi audio bulletin (UN Radio) has also begun to be released every week.

The key to keeping languages alive is either through practice, or preservation or both. While Digital recording and incorporation of many local languages across the world are helping to preserve lingual remains, manual revisiting can also lead to revival of these languages which can be done through speaking, using it as medium of education, encouraging and promoting more and more of literature work and Media Content in these languages, etc. Hyperlocal Journalism through digital means can greatly result in quick upturn.

Wheat Farmers garner more than MSP in Markets

This year the wheat farmers may have overall gotten Rs. 5994 crore extra as compared to the MSP because they could sell at market prices. It’s heartening to know that crores of wheat farmers across the country benefitted significantly from the higher market rates during this crop season as majority of them sold their produce to the private traders at higher price in comparison to the Minimum Support Price (MSP). In this way, farmers reaped higher remuneration for their produce than MSP, as market system worked better for them. The prevailing geo-political situations also provided more options to farmers to sell their produce. It has been reported that during this season the farmers sold their produce at an average rate of Rs. 2150 per quintal in the open market. Accordingly, on the estimated procurement quantity of 444 lakh MT, the farmers may have earned around Rs. 95,460 crore at the rate of Rs. 2150 per quintal instead of Rs. 89,466 crores at the MSP of Rs. 2015 per quintal.

The market prices of wheat remained higher than the MSP throughout this procurement period across the country. The market prices were in the range of around Rs. 2100/- to 2500/ per quintal, which gave enough leeway to the farmers to earn higher. The downward trend in public procurement is attributed to the significantly higher purchase of wheat by private traders as wheat price in the international market shot up due to international demand-supply mismatch on account of prevailing geo-political situations. The MSP of wheat for Rabi Market Season (RMS) 2022-23 was also announced by the Government of India well in advance during the month of September 2021 with a hike of Rs. 40/-per quintal to Rs. 2015/per quintal from Rs. 1975/ per quintal earlier. The MSP of wheat has increased by around 49% to Rs. 2015/quintal in 2022-23, in comparison with Rs. 1350/quintal in 2013-14.

A transparent and uniform policy for procurement of wheat by FCI and state government agencies has helped this. Because if any farmer gets better price in comparison to MSP, he is free to sell his produce in the open market. Inspired by the conducive policies of the government, this year, farmers in greater number in major wheat procuring states in the country with substantial contribution to public procurement like Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, preferred to sell major part of their produce to the market.

The MSP of 22 mandated agricultural crops is announced by the Government of India at the beginning of the sowing season of crops to ensure remunerative price of the produce to farmers. MSP is finalized on the basis of the recommendations of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), which is determined considering important factors like cost of production, overall demand-supply conditions, domestic and international prices, inter-crop price parity, terms of trade between agricultural and non-agricultural sectors, the likely effect on the rest of economy, besides ensuring rational utilization of land, water and other production resources and a minimum of 50% as the margin over cost of production.

Paving the way for Co-Operative Development

The financial co-operative institutions, which trace back their origins to the 19th century, were established across jurisdictions with the objective of extending loans at affordable prices to the unbanked population. Amongst such institutions, the services of credit unions are exclusive for their members, who share a common profession, entrepreneurship interests or location. In contrast, co-operative banks offer services to non-members as well. There is immense potential for development and empowerment of farmers, agriculture and rural areas of the country in the cooperative sector, spurring the government agencies to take many unprecedented decisions to empower the sector with the mantra of ‘Sahakar Se Samriddhi’. In just around a year of its existence, many old demands and problems of the cooperative sector have been resolved by the new Ministry of Cooperation.

The rural co-operative credit system in India is primarily mandated to ensure flow of credit to the agriculture sector. It comprises short-term and long-term co-operative credit structures. The short-term co-operative credit structure operates with a three-tier system – Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) at the village level, Central Cooperative Banks (CCBs) at the district level and State Cooperative Banks (StCBs) at the State level. PACS are outside the purview of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 and hence not regulated by the Reserve Bank of India. During last one year, RBI has taken important steps to increase credit flow through cooperative banks, announcing three very important policy decisions for the sector.

Firstly, the limit of individual housing loan has been doubled for Urban Co-operative Banks and more than doubled for Rural Co-operative Banks. With this decision, the individual housing loan limit for tier-1 Urban Cooperative Banks (UCBs) has now been increased from ₹30 lakh to ₹60 lakh, for tier-2 UCB from ₹70 lakh to ₹1.40 crore, and for Rural Cooperative Banks (RCBs) these have been increased from ₹20 lakhs and ₹30 lakhs to ₹50 lakhs and ₹75 lakhs respectively. In another major decision, RCBs have been allowed to lend to Commercial Real Estate Residential Housing sector, which will increase the scope of our Rural Co-operative Banks and also give impetus to the resolution of providing affordable houses to the people, facilitating better flow of credit to the housing sector, which caters to the needs of lakhs of people especially from the middle class. In the third major decision, now UCBs will be allowed to provide door step banking facility to their customers like commercial banks.

These decisions have given new impetus to the development of the cooperative sector. The increase in credit flow to the housing sector through co-operative banks will lead to an increase in economic activity, increase in capital formation and employment generation, which will have a multiplier effect on the economy. Now, with these changes made by the RBI, cooperative banks will also get a level playing field in the competitive banking sector. Now one can say that co-operative model can be emulated in various other sectors with a continuous push from the government for boosting the economy of the country.