By Vedant Batra

Street vendors form an integral part of India’s culture. However, the ubiquitous services provided by them and the current conditions in which they are forced to live are superseded by our tendency to deem vendors as ignorant of traffic rules and regulations.

These vendors or ‘hawkers’ have been present in India ever since the barter system was developed. They have grown in numbers over time and today there are over 12 million of them. Street vendors sell virtually everything, which is required for daily survival at affordable prices like clothes, food, toys etc. They earn hardly more than 200 to 400 rupees a day and some even less. Street vendors are poor and sell to the poor, forming the backbone of poor India’s needs not only in smaller towns but also in big metropolitan cities.

Majority of the ‘hawkers’ are not educated and come from rural areas and under developed states, to the so-called ‘rich cities’ to earn a living.  A side effect of their lack of education is that most of them are not familiar with traffic rules and regulations which is why they encroach on footpaths, public places, roads, public squares, metro stations etc. ‘Hawkers’ are not protected by any government policy and are harassed by local authorities. Government schemes such as The National Policy of Urban Street Vendors are yet to be implemented through local and municipal authorities and The National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI) registered in 2003 struggles for macro level changes crucial for the survival of such vendors.

Although street vendors often disobey traffic safety ruls; they contribute in a major way to the unorganized sector of our GDP. Moreover, the profession of street vending also is a source of employment to a large number of both women and children. The local municipal bodies are oblivious to the unhygienic sanitary conditions in which they live. The worst part of the already inconvenient and hard-hitting lives of these vendors is the fear of eviction. A recent example of this is the Commonwealth Games held last year. There were reports in various leading newspapers of how vendors were being forcibly evicted from Delhi in order to “beautify and clean the city. This reduced them from already poor vendors to mendicants.

Vendors need to be recognized as a legitimate workforce of the society.  Apart from recognition, there is also a need for a policy under which a separate body can be constituted that can act as a safeguard as well as a watchdog for the street vendor and which could also acquaint them with their rights and limits.

There needs to be a system of communication between civic authorities, shopkeepers, residents associations and vendors to bring out dynamic and innovative solutions. These dialogues could also lead to developing of more effective policies. This body could also act as a link between the municipal bodies and the street vendors. Special zones can be allocated by the body for vending whereas they could be kept away from busy areas at rush hours so as to allow smooth movement of people and vehicles and thus reducing the traffic menace caused by them.

Eviction along with the never-ending harassment has made the vendors themselves wary, hence, now even if policies are implemented the vendors will always be critical of such policies and most likely be stubborn to comply with them. Therefore, the government needs to review the labor laws and street vendor policies of developed countries like the United States and England, where the vendors are allowed in specific zones and their rights are respected. In fact there could be a partnership between the local governments and the vendors where the government could offer incentives in the form of getting them new carts, allotting them permanent slots at very reasonable fee and issuing them permits or licenses in lieu of their movement being restricted to specific areas. This scheme would help curtail the large growth in the population of vendors through limited licensing, the vendors selling in only certified zones would help ease the traffic problems also selling in clusters in common stalls would help in the growth of labor unions to protect the rights of these vendors due development of feelings of unity and lastly it would be beneficial for the local economy and the vendors themselves as they would slowly become more contemporary and methodological in their approach and help give completion to modern retail and wholesale chains.

By Vedant Batra

Sustainable development is not a choice but a necessity for survival. We have over these last few decades debilitated mother earth’s capacity to support life. Stormed by technology and economic greed, driven by gross domestic product, we are now at a crossroad where sustainable development is the need of the hour. Unless we unanimously agree on the same vision to guide us, our society is doomed to fail.

During my summer internship at the GNH commission in Thimphu, Bhutan I discovered that the kingdom of Bhutan was one of the first countries to voice their views on Gross National Happiness as opposed to gross domestic product. They believed GNH to be a more holistic indicator of economic growth and development as compared to GDP.

The term "gross national happiness" was first stated by Bhutan's fourth Dragon King, Jigme Singye Wangchuck in 1980s as a casual reply to a journalist’s question. His Majesty King Wangchuck had opened Bhutan to the age of modernization soon after the demise of his father, Jigme Dorji Wangchuk. He used this phrase to emphasize his commitment to build an economy that would be based on Bhutan's unique Buddhist culture and values.

For The GNH index to become a reality, happiness would have had to be made quantifiable. Therefore the Center for Bhutan Studies, an autonomous government body, spent years to develop various indicators that would become components of the gross national happiness index making it quantitative like the GDP index. The gross domestic product was never intended to be a measure of overall social wellbeing; instead it was intended to be a measure of economic growth. Western economic theory holds that economic growth will enhance social wellbeing. However, the assumption that increase in wealth will lead to increase in happiness is wrong since happiness is an amalgamation of various factors, and these factors are included in the GNH index.

The Bhutanese base their ideology on Buddhist philosophy that the beneficial development of human society takes place when material and spiritual development occur side by side to complement and reinforce each other. The four pillars of GNH are a manifestation of this philosophy; these pillars stand for the promotion of sustainable development, preservation and promotion of cultural values, conservation of the natural environment, and establishment of good governance respectively

In collaboration with an international group of scholars and researchers the Centre for Bhutan Studies further defined these four pillars with greater specificity into nine different domains (further divided into 72 indicators): health, education, living standards, time use, environmental quality, culture, community vitality, governance, and psychological wellbeing. These domains help to set specific goals for the government. For example, when the GNH commission conducted a survey they found out that a majority of people ticked ‘no’ in a question related to meditation under the domain psychological wellbeing. The result was that the government introduced compulsory meditation in schools, thereby balancing psychological wellbeing with other domains.

Another milestone of GNH is its policy-screening tool. All public policies in Bhutan, irrespective of their origin (except a royal order or declaration of emergency) shall have to go through the GNH screening tool in order to examine the impact of the policy on Bhutan. The policy is passed through 23 indicators and marked on a 4-point scale in each indicator where a score of 1 denotes a negative score, 2 an uncertain score, 3 a neutral score and 4 a positive score. The total score is therefore 92 (23x4) and the neutral passing score is 69 (23x3) and if a policy does not achieve the neutral score it fails and is not introduced. The ministry that develops the policy as well as the GNH commission (for an unbiased opinion) does the marking.

Measurement of social wellbeing and happiness is complex, and although I do not believe that happiness can be measured, the GNH index is a far more universal index than the GDP. In the future sustainable development will be more important than just simple economic growth and the GNH index can help us achieve and assess this form of development. Bhutan a kingdom of just 800,000 people was recently ranked 8th in the world by a ‘satisfaction with life’ survey despite having a relatively low life expectancy, small GDP and a per capita income of just $670. Today, Bhutan has become a guiding example for western countries that are looking transform their economies towards a path of holistic development. I feel that as responsible citizens of the world we have lot to learn from Bhutan.

By Vedant Batra

The Economy of India is the ninth largest in the world by nominal GDP and the fourth largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). The country is one of the G-20 major economies and a member of BRICS. The country's per capita GDP (PPP) was $ 3,627 (World Bank, 126th in the world) in 2011, making it a lower-middle income economy.

On independence, the Indian economy was primarily influenced by the socialist Soviet state planned economy characterized by a dominant public sector, high import duties and lesser private participation. However this system led to rampant corruption and was plagued with inefficiencies. Finally, in 1991, India adopted free market ideologies and liberalized its economy opening up international trade under the guidance of Manmohan Singh, then the Finance Minister of India. These economic reforms pushed the country in a phase of rapid growth in GDP and per capita income. The growth was led predominantly due to a vast increase in the size of the middle class consumer population, a large workforce comprising of skilled and non-skilled workers, improving education standards and sizable increase in foreign investments.

By 2008 India established itself as the world's second fastest growing major economy. However, due to the 2008-09 financial there has worldwide slow down in economic growth that has effected India too, although not as adversely as the developed world. India's gross domestic Product (GDP) growth rate significantly slowed to 6.7% in 2008–09, but consequently recovered to 7.4% in 2009–10, while the fiscal deficit rose from 5.9% to a 6.5% during the same period.

The Service sector dominates the Indian economy and accounts for 57.2% of the country's GDP while the industrial and agricultural sectors contribute 28.6% and 14.6% respectively. India is a developing country hence rural India is dominated by agriculture, which accounts for a massive 52% of the countries employment. The service sector provides employment to around 34% of the population and the remaining are employed in the industries.

Major industries in India include telecommunications, textiles, chemicals, food processing, steel, transportation equipment, cement, mining, petroleum, machinery, software and pharmaceuticals. The labour force comprises of 500 million workers and the major agricultural products include rice, wheat, oilseed, cotton, jute, tea and sugarcane. In 2011, India's top five trading partners were China, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, USA and Switzerland. According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), India accounted for 1.5% of the world trade as of 2007 with exports at $309 Billion (2012) and imports totaling $500 Billion (2012).

The Indian rupee is the only legal tender in India, and is also accepted as legal tender in the neighboring Nepal and Bhutan, both of which peg their currency to that of the Indian rupee. The rupee is divided into 100 paise. The highest-denomination banknote is the 1,000-rupee note and as of 2011, 50 paise is the minimum coin to be accepted by all establishments.

As of 2013 India has been ranked 136 among 187 countries by the human development index (HDI) — a measure for assessing progress in life expectancy, access to knowledge and, standard of living and per capita income. India’s HDI measure is 0.554, which places it in the medium human development category. Since this index is more holistic than GDP it reflects not the benefits due to economic growth but also improvements in economic development. This shows that even though India may be one of the fastest growing economies on a more holistic note is well below the developed nations and even the world average of 0.694 according to the HDI.

Another important index to evaluate India’s economy is the GINI index that measures a country’s inequality. India’s GINI score in 2004 was 36.8 at par with developed nations and below the average inequality in the world at 39 (2007). However the inequality in India is increasing at a fast pace due to the growing concentration of wealth with the elite and as of 2011 is 38 bringing it closer to the GINI index of developing nations.

Therefore we can say that the Indian economy has performed impressively over the previous two decades. India has sustained periods of high growth and lifted millions out of poverty and is predicted to be the worlds third largest GDP by 2050. However to achieve its goals India must overcome major issues such as that of corruption and address growing concerns like that of rising inequality.