Policy Watch: special issue – December 2019

This is our second special issue covering an article each from all themes. The first article from the Governance and Development theme, on “Vision 2020: Are we getting there or have we lost our way?” studies the progress of the nation vis-à-vis the goals and ambitions set for 2020 at the beginning of the millennium. It takes up key areas and analyses the development, goals achieved, challenges faced and whether the government was successful in fulfilling the promises or failed to deliver.

The second article on “Financing MSMEs for Growth and Employment” looks at financing for micro, small and medium enterprises. The article studies the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) scheme launched by the government in 2015 to provide additional bank loans to MSMEs. It also shows that the PMMY has been a limited success, if at all even in credit enhancement, and even less in incremental employment. The article traces the cause of this to a faulty design of the PMMY loan products and suggests design improvements including the provision for cash credit in place of term loans and micro-equity in place of loans for startup MSMEs.

The third article from the theme, “Environment, Natural Resources and Sustainability” is titled “Degeneration of Resources – Impact on Baigas”. This is an extract from a study conducted on the lives and livelihoods of the Baigas, one of the vulnerable tribal groups in the state of Madhya Pradesh. The article highlights how the lives of these tribals in Shahdol and Annupur districts have been affected by the degradation of natural resources—Jal, Jangal, Jameen—in their areas.

The fourth article, titled “Higher Education Fee Hikes: Affordability vs. Sustainability,” is from the Constitutional Values and Democratic Institutions theme. It begins by describing the historical context of higher education policy, moves on to highlight recent student protests over fee hikes in different institutions across the country, and discusses how fee hikes impact higher education and society at large.

The fifth article from the theme, “India’s Place in the World,” is titled “Painting the Rainbow Brown – the Global Arc of Populism?” This article attempts to discern various facets of populism across countries to develop an understanding of its ideological underpinnings. It provides a quick view of populism in Latin America, the United States, and Europe, highlighting its various facets, and in the process attempts to develop a taxonomy of populism on the basis of its severity. Finally, some of the counter-responses to populism are examined along with their limitations.