National Education Policy 2020: UNDER THE CCS SPOTLIGHT

On 29 July, the Cabinet approved the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. In a big win for us, the NEP 2020 makes a case for the separation of policy-making, regulatory and service delivery functions in education with the potential to transform education governance. At the Centre for Civil Society, we have consistently advocated for the separation of functions in reforming education governance in India. We also published a Policy Blueprint on the Separations of Powers in Education in 2018.

In our latest Facebook Live dialogue, CCS team members, Parth J Shah, President; Bhuvana Anand, Director-Research and Prashant Narang, Associate Director-Research delved into the hits and misses of the policy and shared their learnings on public policy as an instrument of social change.

The final policy hits the mark on many points. Its most important proposal is on separating the role of the government as regulator and service provider writes Tarini Sudhakar, Research Associate, CCS in her article ‘NEP Hits Bull’s Eye By Fixing Regulatory Framework For Schools’. However, Gurcharan Das, Former CEO, Procter & Gamble, India and Trustee, CCS writes that despite excellent recommendations the NEP Promises Much, But Fails To Come To Grips With India’s Education Crisis, Whether the NEP meets the serious challenges that confront India’s education sector, remains to be seen.

LAUNCH OF THE HINDI EDITION OF ‘POVERTY AND FREEDOM: CASE STUDIES ON GLOBAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

In July with support from Atlas Network, we launched the Hindi edition of ‘Poverty and Freedom: Case Studies on Global Economic Development’. The launch was followed by a panel discussion on the ‘Role of Think Tanks in Eradicating Poverty’ with Basanta Adhikari, Founding Chairperson, Bikalpa, Nepal; Mohammad Khalid Ramizy, Executive Director, Afghanistan Economic & Legal Studies Organization (AELSO), Afghanistan; Mohammad Omar Mostafiz, Programme Manager, Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Bangladesh; Zia Banday, Entrepreneur and Development Consultant, Pakistan; Prashant Narang, Associate Director - Research, CCS, and Avinash Chandra, Editor, Azadi.me, CCS. Bringing together panelists from five different countries, the discussion addressed market-based solutions to eradicate poverty.

MAKING LIFE EASIER FOR SMALL ENTERPRISES: AN EXAMPLE FROM PUNJAB

In this article, Bhuvana Anand, Director-Research, CCS and Arjun Krishnan, Associate-Research, CCS discuss how the Right to Business Act, along with the additional reforms undertaken by the Government of Punjab, will likely engender a friendly environment in which to start and operate small enterprises. From 2015 to 2018, the state’s ease of doing business score has increased from 36.7 to 54.4. These reforms are likely to push the score up even higher.

CCS has been working to dismantle regulatory barriers that directly impact the ease of opening and running businesses, particularly to foster inclusive markets and improve livelihoods for bottom-of- pyramid communities.

In 2018, we published the Doing Business in Delhi Report that studied the regulatory barriers to operate restaurants, meat shops and e-waste recycling plants in Delhi, evaluating the business reforms conducted between 2016 to 2018.

A VIDEO STORY ON STATES’ COMPLIANCE WITH THE STREET VENDORS ACT

To comply with the Street Vendors Act 2014, state governments have to formulate subordinate legislation and introduce institutional mechanisms and processes through which vendors’ rights are protected. But have states lived up to these ambitions?

The third edition of our Progress Report on Implementing the Street Vendors Act ranks and scores state performance based on the extent of implementation. Our video on ‘Patri ka kanoon patri par nahi: Rajyon dwara Street Vendors Act ka Anupalan’ highlights the key findings of this report. We find that on the one hand, implementation of the Act is poor and on the other hand, states have created several regulatory hurdles that impinge on a vendor’s ease of doing business on the streets.