Do we want to encourage foreign students to study in India ?

Some 5 lakh indians study abroad every year and less than 10 % of that number come from other countries to study in india. For years, Congress had been trying to open up India’s higher education sector to foreign universities. But the bill could not be passed as it was strongly opposed by BJP. Once in power itself, BJP did a turnaround – as it did on most other things, and has been trying to invite foreign universtities to india, without great success. That is not to say there are no arguments against inviting foreign universities to india, but thats another discussion.

But the story in this piece is along another track.. Failing in the above, the government early this year, launched a scheme to offer scholarship to half the foreign students who want to study in india, in the hope of quadrupling their numbers by 2023. Currently, one quarter of foreign students in India are from Nepal, and 10 % from Afghanistan. The scheme is to be marketed to 30 countries in South and West Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.

But the continuous wave of violence and communal / caste disturbances invoked by the Hindu right in universities are surely counter productive to this endeavour. The latest is Sharda University in Greater Noida where a week ago, a minor incident grew into a brawl between Afghan and local students. Then Gau rakshak samiti and Bajrangdal members came in subsequently and made infllammatory speeches that resulted in a bigger riot the day before. Ayan, a 21-year-old Afghan student, said he had been getting calls from unknown numbers. “We hear things like ‘Afghanistan murdabad’ and ‘Pakistanis are pigs’,” he said. “We consider India our second home but we feel unsafe here.” 

A Kashmiri student said : "Now most of us don’t get out for our Friday namaz. We know elections are coming, so people will do anything to get more followers." Thankfully, the District Magistrate of Greater Noida has taken some strong steps. But once again the Hindu right has shown that they are the ugliest face of india.

By 2013, only 11 % of the World's Population remained in Poverty !

Last night, my husband mentioned poverty rates across the world have been declining.. I said that there had been recent reversals due to worsening ecological impacts of global warming but he did not think so. I decided to look up the data. 

A 2016 report by the World Bank was very encouraging : In 2013, fewer than 800 million people lived on less than $1.90 a day (nearly Rs. 130 at today's exchange rate). That's less than 11 percent of the global population. As recently as 1990, about 35 percent of all people lived in such extreme poverty. That means about 1.1 billion people rose out of extreme poverty.

The percentage of people in Latin America, East Asia, North Africa and Eastern Europe who still lived in poverty was 5 % and below. But it was still over 40 % in Sub-saharan Africa and 15 % in South Asia. 

Researchers tied future poverty declines to reducing inequality. The countries where inequality declined in recent years included Brazil, Cambodia and Tanzania. Some successful policies employed which in my assessment, India pays inadequate attention to, include early childhood development and nutrition, universal health coverage, universal access to quality education and making cash transfers to poor families.

In 2012, according to Reserve Bank of India data, the States with the highest percentages of population in poverty (upto 40 %) were Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Mizoram.

The next States with upto 30 % of their population in poverty were Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa and Assam.

The States with the least poverty in India (uptill 10 %) were Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Himachal.