Vulnerable Children: On Time Delivery – The Large Blind Spot In India’s Immunisation Policy

By M H AHSSAN | INNLIVE

Only a third of India's children are vaccinated on time under the government immunisation programme. One reason is that families don’t keep proper records.

The majority of children immunised under the government’s universal immunisation programme don’t get their vaccinations on time. New research shows that two-thirds of children under the age of five had either not been vaccinated at all, or received their vaccine shots much later than prescribed.

Spotlight: A Misplaced Emphasis On Indian Highways?

By LIKHAVEER | INNLIVE

Why does the government continue with its blind focus on highways and expressways when infrastructure for water supply, waste management and mass transit system is in desperate need of attention? INNLIVE criticises the government's prioritization and says there is more to public infrastructure than just highways and expressways.

Prolonged Repetitive Manual Work Ups Rheumatoid Arthritis Risk

By LIKHAVEER | INNLIVE

Prolonged repetitive manual work that includes lifting heavy objects or bending increases the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis, a new study has found.

Although work-related physical activity over many years is known to cause many cases of osteoarthritis (OA) in selected joints, this is the first study to show a link between physical workload and rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

To examine whether physical workload is a possible risk factor for RA, information on different types of self-reported exposure was analysed from a population of 3,680 RA patients and 5,935 matched controls.

Is The Local Kirana Store Under Threat From The ECommerce Industry?

By NIKHIL SHARMA | INNLIVE

Looking back at the evolution process, e-commerce was introduced in India through shopping sites like Rediff, Indiatimes, Sify and HomeShop18 in the early 2000s. However, they failed to gain widespread recognition amongst the Indian masses due to their limited range of products and payment options. With advancement in technology and growing manpower, e-shopping has gained significant success and popularity in the last couple of years. But there is a major policy gap, which needs to be addressed.

Saturday Tadka: How Fat Became Our Friend - Expert Reveals Why It's Time To Ditch Low Calorie Foods Which Are Packed With Sugar?

By NEWSCOP } INNLIVE

• Experts warn against dieting on low fat yoghurt, rice crackers and cereals
• 99 per cent fat-free products are often low in fibre and full of added sugar
• Rebecca Charlotte Reynolds, nutrition lecturer from Sydney, explains

For years we were told the secret to staying slim and healthy was a low fat, low calorie diet.

But the tide has begun to turn - and the countless products claiming to be 'light', 'lean' or '99 per cent fat-free' are becoming increasingly demonised.

Analysis: Narendra Modi's Five-Nation Tour: India Setting New Terms Of Diplomacy Around The World

By M H AHSSAN | INNLIVE

With the conclusion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's five-nation tour on Friday, the strategic objectives of Indian diplomacy seem to be getting a clearer focus in contrast to the ambivalence of the past.

This seems to be the dominant view of Indian diplomats, who play important roles in defining the terms of engagement with foreign countries. Apart from looking at Modi’s visit from the prism of his roaring reception in US, the Indian government is attaching equal significance to his visits to Afghanistan-Qatar and Switzerland-Mexico.

This Iron Lady’s “Takat Wala Powder” Is A Recipe For Women’s Empowerment In Rajasthan

By MONALISA PADHEE |INNLIVE

A story of a self-made women who discovered the way to live wit her intelligenmce and thoughts to survive in this business world.

After completing my Ph.D. from the University of South Australia (Adelaide), I was told that I had two choices – either take up a postdoctoral position or return to India and work in the development sector. I did neither. Instead, I listened to my heart and went from writing academic research papers to actually working closely with the subjects of these research papers. This I did by embarking on a 13-month long journey in rural India, through the SBI Youth for India Fellowship. Not only was this an opportunity to understand a rural community at close quarters, it also gave me a chance to use my knowledge and skills to help solve some real-time issues.

It's All In Numbers: Don't Celebrate India's Economic Growth Yet

By LIKHAVEER | INNLIVE

An analysis of the components of the GDP show that there has been a decline in several indicators, and an unexplained rise in some.

The government recently announced that India’s Gross Domestic Product has grown from 7.2% in the December 2015 quarter to 7.9% in the March 2016 quarter. This should be a reason for much celebration, but popular sentiment seems unaffected. This is because the statistical picture being presented doesn’t reflect ground realities.

Reeling Under Heat Waves: What's Going On With India’s Weather?

By NALINI SHAH | INNLIVE

Until now, India's smog problem has curbed extreme temperatures. But that could be about to change.

On May 19, India’s all-time temperature record was smashed in the northern city of Phalodi in the state of Rajasthan. Temperatures soared to 51℃, beating the previous record set in 1956 by 0.4℃.

India is known for its unbearable conditions at this time of year, just before the monsoon takes hold. Temperatures in the high 30s are routine, with local authorities declaring heatwave conditions only once thermometers reach a stifling 45℃. But the record comes on the back of an exceptionally hot season, with several heatwaves earlier in the year. So what’s to blame for these scorching conditions?

Two Years On: PM Narendra Modi's Report Card On Govt And BJP Performance

By M H AHSSAN | INNLIVE

The performance of Narandra Modi as an individual, the functioning of his government and the narrative of his RSS-backed party during the preceding two years calls for a dispassionate analysis that's done without any fear or favour. But believe it or not, it's too difficult a job for the simple reason that the man of the moment, his government and his party look like three different entities.

And analysing the performances of the three put together would present a confusing, indecipherable picture.

Feature: Have You Tried Online Weightloss?

By AEMAN FATIMA | INNLIVE

It is the age of restlessness. People want to look good, stay healthy and happy without investing time for it. In their hectic, maddening lifestyles they harbor the will to lead a healthy life but lack the time and energy to do so. But then, technology has made it easy for them by offering solutions like, weight loss and exercise apps. Another fad which is widely picking up is signing up for online diet programmes.

Better tomorrows: Could the Niti Aayog's 15-year vision document actually transform India?

By M H AHSSAN | INNLIVE

It will depend on whether it's a shared vision or a vision shared.

The media have reported that the government of India is abandoning the five-year planning process that the country has used for over 60 years. Instead, the National Institution for Transforming India (the NITI Aayog), will prepare a 15-year vision document.

This a good idea. A process of making five-year plans and allocating resources from the Centre may have been appropriate in the years immediately after India’s Independence; when the country’s resources were scarce, and were largely with the public sector – the private sector being small then; when the Indian states were weaker than they are now; and when India was, and could be, isolated from the global economy. The replacement of five-year budgetary plans, with another process fit for a more open country in a dynamic global economy, was overdue.

It has been reported that the 15-year vision document will formulate ways through which India can achieve its broader social objectives to meet the United Nation’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. This is welcome too, though this will not be a radical change because the goals of the last two five-year plans already were sustainable and inclusive growth.

The radical change is the replacement of a five-year plan combined with resource allocations with a 15-year vision without budgets. Prima facie, this seems a fuzzy idea. Firstly, if five-year plans were becoming untenable because they could not anticipate changes in the economy beyond the first couple of years, how can 15-year long projections work? Secondly, if a plan with budgets attached could not compel sufficient action, how will commitment to the vision be ensured through the changes in government that can happen with several elections over 15 years? In short, will the vision be just a document – a piece of paper with even less effect on the course of India’s development than the fve-year plans had?

It's how you get there:
The answer is, it depends on the process used to produce the vision and to develop pathways to it. Visions are useful for what they do. Powerful visions align people voluntarily towards shared goals they aspire for. The power to align themselves comes when the vision is their own. Moreover, in dynamically changing situations, internally and externally, while a vision may remain stable, plans to achieve the vision must be changeable. Therefore, rather than providing maps with pre-defined paths, the outcome of planning should be a compass with which leaders can steer systems through change.

There is a big difference in the powers of a shared vision compared with a vision shared. A vision developed by experts, or a leader at the top, and then given to the rest, is a vision shared. It can point to an attractive star. But such a vision does not have sufficient gravitational force to compel action that a shared vision, in the development of which people have participated, can have. Whereas a vision shared must be translated to the people, a shared vision is shaped in their own terms as it is evolved.

The last Planning Commission had searched for methods of planning for 21st century India. It tested new methods of scenario planning to supplement the conventional five-year plans it was required to make. Scenarios are not predictions. They are plausible views of what the country will be like, 10 or 15 years out, depending on the directions big forces in the environment may take, and on the policies adopted by the country. Thus scenario planning helps policy-makers to steer, and to determine which policies will produce the most favorable outcomes in a dynamic environment.

The most desirable of the three plausible scenarios of India, projected by the Planning Commission, was titled “The Flotilla Advances”. It produced the most inclusive outcomes as well as the fastest growth. The other scenarios, which produced slower, as well as less inclusive and less sustainable growth, were called “Muddling Along” and “Falling Apart”. The titles of the scenarios point to the processes by which inclusive growth must be produced in diverse and democratic India. The states and private sectors cannot be directed from the center any more. Their leaders steer their own ships. All must share a vision of where they are going. And scenarios suggest to them the paths they should follow to get there. An architecture of policies required to align the flotilla and to produce the best outcomes was also derived from the systems’ analysis.

What experience shows:
The Bertelsmann Foundation of Germany has made a world-wide study of “Winning Strategies for a Sustainable Future”. It studied 35 countries around the world that appear to be leaders in developing strategies for sustainable growth. It examined the quality of their strategies, the frameworks for implementation, and results so far. Bertelsmann found two essential features in the processes used by the leaders.

The first is that sustainability policy derives from an overriding concept and guiding principles that are made to permeate significant areas of politics and society. And the “best practice” to make this happen is to get specific in national debates on a new score-card of progress. The UN’s 16 development goals with their 169 sub-goals cannot be imposed on the people. Countries must develop their own specific score-cards for their own conditions albeit conforming with the goals.

The second requirement for success, Bertelsmann’s study found, is that sustainability policy must be developed and implemented in a participatory manner. Therefore, the task for countries is to develop new participatory formats for planning. Not only must large numbers of people be engaged, but different constituents must listen to each other to develop an integrative vision of the future of the country.

For a 15-year vision to keep successive governments on course, it must be a vision that people believe in. It must be the people’s shared vision with their participation in it. The vision cannot be just a good document which a new government can tear up and write another. The goals must matter to people and be expressed in terms they understand. Then only will pressure from the people compel new governments to stay on course towards it.

Also, a process based on systems thinking, rather than linear planning, is required to understand the interplay of social, political, and economic forces to foresee the scenarios they will produce, and to describe the paths for the flotilla to steer towards its vision through dynamic changes in the environment.

The conclusion is that the NITI Aayog’s 15-year vision document will not matter as much the process by which the vision and the directions to it will emerge. The process used will determine whether the vision, and the programmes and policies it recommends, will accelerate the progress of the country towards its goals of sustainable and inclusive development.

With A Speech Every 45.6 Hours, Has Modi Exhausted His Talk-Time?

By LIKHAVEER | INNLIVE

While the prime minister’s supporters may say this is a testament to his inexhaustible energy, his detractors feel he runs the risk of sounding repetitive.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivers a speech or makes a public statement every 1.9 days or every 45.6 hours. In reality, though, he takes to the microphone at a rate more frequent than these figures indicate.

Why BJP's Nationalism Is Like An Autoimmune Disease?

By M H AHSSAN | INNLIVE

Patriotism confers upon nations a degree of protection against attack by indoctrinating citizens into defending their country even at a risk to themselves.

As such, it has its uses, since we crave the security afforded by a stable nation state. In certain circumstances, though, nationalism behaves like a hyperimmune condition, treating benign phenomena as hostileattacks. At that point, patriotism becomes a threat to the nation’s health rather than a guarantor of security.

Analysis: Asad Owaisi's AIMIM Stirs Up A Hornet's Nest

By SYED AMIN JAFRI | INNLIVE

The decision of All India Majlis-e Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) to enter the Assembly poll fray in Bihar, albeit on a limited scale, has stirred up the hornet's nest. More than the political parties, the media appears to be perturbed and upset by AIMIM's move. TV channels and print media unleashed the propaganda that AIMIM's entry would help BJP at the cost of the Grand Alliance of “secular parties."

Analysis: Why 'Asad Owaisi' Doesn’t Stand A Chance In Bihar Or WB, Unlike Badruddin Ajmal In Assam?

By SNM ABDI | INNLIVE

Asaduddin Owaisi has tossed his topi (cap) into the Bihar election ring after dithering for a month. But Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM)’s prospects in Bihar’s Seemanchal belt are bleak despite the unusually high percentage of Muslim voters in the 25 assembly seats Owaisi is eyeing in the backward region.

Special Report: Three Major Takeaways From PM Modi’s 'Big Meeting' With 'Billionaires, Bankers And Babus'

By NEWSCOP | INNLIVE

New Delhi’s No. 7 Race Course Road—Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s official residence—today (Sept. 08) hosted some of the country’s most high-profile bankers, industrialists and policy makers.

Modi spent about three hours with the 40-member group, packed with cabinet ministers, key bureaucrats and bankers, corporate leaders and economists. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan, Reliance Industries’ chairman Mukesh Ambani, Tata Group chairman Cyrus Mistry and State Bank of India chief Arundhati Bhattacharya were in attendance.

Exclusive: 'Lack Of Sleep And Poor Working Conditions' Makes 'Police Stressed' Reveal INNLIVE Study

By M H AHSSAN | INNLIVE

A lack sleep, irregular meals, low incomes and poor working conditions are some of the reasons attributed to higher stress levels among police personnel, according to a study conducted by INNLIVE research wing. 

The study, which interviewed over 300 constables, inspectors and police personnel of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, has outlined that inspectors have the highest level of stress followed by officers and constables. 

During the study, the policemen describe their job as “unlimited and unpredictable” with “insufficient sleep hours and irregular meals” which render their lifestyle extremely exhausting and unpredictable.

The study was recently published in Indian Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. It pointed out that around 90 per cent of the police personnel were under stress to due high levels of accountability and political interference, 80 per cent of them were stressed due to long and odd work hours, frequent transfers and postings, 70 per cent of them due to change in priorities, due to political shakiness, difficulty in sanctioning of leaves, role conflict between “being family person” versus “police person,” adjusting with seniors and not being able to spend time with their family. 

“A major source of stress was factors such as frequent transfers, slow promotions, fear of suspension and punishment, difficulty in getting leave sanctions, insufficient staff and dis-satisfactory work distribution. Although constables were found to experience overall stress lesser than inspectors and officers, they were significantly most stressed up in the areas of environmental stress, travelling away from the organisation and work overload,” the study said. 

“As many as 80 per cent of the constables felt that at their office the working conditions were very unpleasant due to the absence of indispensable facilities like proper toilets, drinking water and refreshment. They were most stressed in this area with 70 per cent of them feeling strained while commuting their workplace against 30 per cent of inspectors and 10 per cent of officers. They had to use their own conveyance like bicycles or motorcycles for official purposes for which they were not given allowances promptly,” it said. 

In addition, to these findings the qualitative analysis revealed that constables felt more hassled than the inspectors and officers due to low salary structure, lack of housing and medical facilities and their inability to fulfill the demands of their families.

Moreover, there were more than 50 per cent of constables who sense their work hours as very long, they had to go for two work shifts consecutively and they were unable to spend time with their families. “They also face difficulty in adjusting with their bosses who were usually inspectors. They often feel that they were punished by their seniors without any proper inquiry and did not have any platform where they can express themselves,” the study said.

Does Global Stock Market Turmoil Signals BRIC Is Over?

By NEWSCOP | INNLIVE

Back in 2001, former Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O’Neill coined the acronym BRIC to highlight the immense economic potential of the emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India and China in the decades to come.

They would be the economic engines of tomorrow, he wrote.

The BRIC nations, which cover a quarter of the world’s landmass and contain 40% of its population, had a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of $20 trillion back in 2001.

Defeated In Odisha, Is Posco Conquering Maharashtra?

Maharashtra’s coastal district of Sawantwadi is set to see some change, come 2016. Almost 33 thousand acres in size, it has lately been gaining popularity as a tourist spot and for its wooden handicraft industry. But it is in the news these days as it’s set to host South Korean giant Posco, which has signed a MoU with Uttam Steel, promoted by the Miglani family, to set up a 3 million tonne per annum integrated steel plant.

POSCO stays undeterred by the unsuccessful attempt to set up a steel plant in Odisha. The 12 billion dollar project lays dormant as the Center and the company have come to an impasse.