Not Toeing Your Line

As professed by yourself, you have a single point vision,
Interpeting matter not said, without rhyme or reason
To clarify, I just took example from your 'liberated' person,
And showed with fact their subjugation without treason.

Poor or rich, women and men, do not need your sympathy to shine,
Get out of your belief, and accept plural concerns without whine,
You are not the first one to castigate me for not toeing your line,
You are not the first one to castigate me for not toeing your line.

Proposed Rally Outside Indian Parliament by Right to Food Campaign

Request: Please share this even if you feel that a friend or a friend of a friend might be interested.

This is a message from the Right to Food Campaign announcing and inviting people to a rally outside parliament demanding urgent passage of the Right to Food Act and intervention in drought stricken areas.

Organised by: Right to Food Campaign, India.
Date-November 26, 2009 Time: 11.00 am- 5.00pm
Venue-Mandi House to Parliament Street, New Delhi.

Dear All,
Greetings from the Right to Food Campaign Secretariat, New Delhi. This is to invite you to a rally on the 26th of November, 2009 to put pressure on the UPA government to enact the proposed right to food act as pledged by the congress party in its manifesto and announced by the President of India on June 4 in the parliament and Prime Minister on 15 August from the red fort. All of us are also aware of the fact, that the country is faced by severe drought and spiralling food prices. The situation of hunger and malnutrition in the country is exacerbated even more than usual. In the midst of all this, the UPA government has failed to live up to its promise of enacting the right to food act within 100 days of its inception. The government is denying the need of enacting such a useful act urgently, in the guise of its involvement and efforts in tackling drought, which is a farce.

The drafting of the essentials demand and the working draft of the act has evolved as a participatory exercise, involving a range of groups and individuals with consultations held in Delhi on June 18th, July 11th, and 17th September. On the basis of this dialogue, the steering committee of the right to food campaign has put together a list of essential demands and a working draft of the proposed right to food act.

You can read all the developments till date towards the right to food act on the web link. In order to put across our demands forcefully in front of the Govt of India and our law makers, the Right to Food Campaign has planned to have a rally and demonstration of minimum 5000 people outside on 26th November, 2009 outside parliament house at Jantar Manter. The rally will begin from Mandi house. The route of the rally shall be communicated to you later in next communication. The rally will comprise of people from various states including different drought and flood affected districts, activists from various organisations, policy makers, members of parliament and political parties) Without your support of mobilising people, this rally will not be a success and therefore we appeal to you to own this rally as your own.

In the next 40 days, we request you to support this initiative by:
a) Organising signature campaign in the local areas by all groups against the demands circulated and bringing for display in the rally. The signatures can be collected in sarees or banners using the attached documents as a mobilising tool.
b) Distributing and communicating the charter of demands for the march to the local groups and mobilising as many as possible citizens to participate in the rally.
c) To encourage as many State and district Sammelans.
d) Helping to mobilise minimum of 5000 participants on 26th November Rally.
e) Helping to raise funds for the rally.

Please come with members of your organization and be a part of this rally reminding the government of its promises and immediate responsibilities to the nation. We request you to come with your own banners, placards of demands. We attach a list of documents namely
a) Charter of demands for the march to parliament in Hindi and English
b) Summary of the demands in Hindi and English in two short and longer versions, which can be circulated to the local groups. You are free to translate this in the local language of your choice for better communication.

Please drop us a line about your participation, including the numbers of people from your groups so that we can make adequate logistic arrangements. Please help us spread the word regarding this rally. You can contact below in case of queries on the rally.

Let us make this rally a success!!

With regards,
Steering Group of the Right to Food Campaign.


--
Secretariat - Right to Food Campaign
C/o PHRN
5 A, Jungi House,
Shahpur Jat, New Delhi 110049.
India
website: www.righttofoodindia.org
Email: righttofood@gmail.com
Phone - 91 -11 -2649 9563

Read all the developments towards Right to Food Act, 2009 here.

Teacher-centric Primary and Secondary Education

Today, I received an unsolicitated mail from Mr Ashish Putambekar of the Nataraja Foundation. With so many of spam mails coming I was about to delete it, but there was something in the lengthy subject line 'Project Proposal: The Indian Primary and Secondary Education Megaproject ... A Unique Teacher Centric Project' that made me open the file. A lot of work has gone into this. It is a worthy cause. I thought of putting their link in my blog, whcih will also come up as a link in my facebook. I request everyone to have a look and share this.

A couple of points that I have are as follows.
The asthetically cost-saving architechture was nostalgic for me. I studied in Trivandrum at the Centre for Development Studies, built by Laurie Baker. There is this anecdote. Prof KN Raj got some funds to begin the Centre and he was worried that all the money will go in just putting up the buildings. It is because of Laurie Baker than the cost of construction could be reduced substantially (perhaps, 25 per cent of the original estimate) and the money saved went to the library. While proposing such structures, the schools/megaprojet can claim green funds.

While travelling in remote parts of rural India, one observes that schools, health centres, banks are deserted because service providers do not reside due to absence of basic facilities (physical and human). Teacher mentions about the absence of health care, banking and other basic facilities. Health care providers point out the absence of good schools and other facilities. Bankers bemoan the absence of education, health and other facilities for their families. There is a need to keep other basic requiremnts in mind. One feels that 'The Indian Social Infrastructure Corporation' proposed should not limit itself to schools alone.

On a cautious note, if the goverment fails to take this initiative, what is the alternative. Can one not start this on a pilot basis. Or, maybe take it up in states where the governments are willing. It is worth trying to initiate the exercises in states of Bihar and Orissa. An example is the success of Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty in Andhra Pradesh. Yes, it was given full autonomy, not linked with any departments and worked as an independent body with the help of professionals.

I wish this initiative success.

Why, E is equal to MC square?

Whether one writes an epic,
Or, dons the hat of a poet.
The only measuring stick,
Will be its literary bit.
If, I were a genius,
Like Einstein.
I would show my prowess,
In a single line.
Thank my parents,
For bringing me here.
Thank my stars,
For being still there.
But, I still do not courage to dare,
Why, E is equal to MC square.

(In my Facebook, there is a note Scribd is Looking for the Next Great American Author! There was a query, "Is there a length requirement for the work?" I thought I will respond and ended up writing this sonnet.)

Calculating Gini Coefficient from Grouped Data: An Update

Eurekha!

Since yesterday, I have been trying to work out a method of calculating gini coefficient from grouped data. A quick search in the web took to some literature - the most interesting one being Approximation of Gini Index from Grouped Data by Nuria Badenes-Plá. Our suggestions would be independent of this paper. Now, let us give some prelimnaries.

We have a population divided into i=1,...,n groups, which have been ordered from the poorest to the richest. Let X-axis denote cummulative share of population, x_i, and let Y-axis denote cummulative share of wealth (or, something like that), y_i. The shares of population and wealth for each group is denoted as a_i and b_i respectively. If we compute the area below the Lorenz curve then we get:

(Σ_ia_ib_i/2+Σ_i(1-x_i)b_i)

In a conventional sense the gini coefficient is:

1-2(Σ_ia_ib_i/2+Σ_i(1-x_i)b_i)

The peoblem is that in complete inequality when n-1 groups do not have any wealth and the n^th group has all wealth then the area above the Lorenz curve is not half, it is less than that by a_n/2. To address this, we correct for the anomaly and propose a method for calculating gini coefficient:

((1/2)-(Σ_ia_ib_i/2+Σ_i(1-x_i)b_i))/((1-a_n)/2)

or

(1-2(Σ_ia_ib_i/2+Σ_i(1-x_i)b_i))/(1-a_n)

Our suggested method satisfies three properties. (1) At complete equality, if wealth share for each and every group is equal to its population share, its value is zero. (2) At complete inequality, if there is no wealth for n-1 groups and all the wealth is with the n^th group, its value is unity. (3) The calculation is population invariant - we do not have to know the size of the total population. Thus, it follows that if a population is replicated m number of times then the inequality computed will remain the same.

If instead of wealth, we are dealing with share of poor (or some other deprivation) then X-axis denotes proportion of poor and Y-axis denotes proportion of population. The above formula continues. This formula can also be used for unit level data whether weighted or unweighted, but one should be careful in calculating the shares.

Let us get back to Badenes-Plá's paper. Here also the area being lower than (1/2) at complete inequality was discussed and a suggestion proposed in its equation (12). This makes use of total aggregate wealth, W, as well as wealth for each group, w_i, ranks for each group, i, and population shares, a_i, and the formula is:

1-((1/W)(Σ(n-i)w_ia_i)/(Σ(n-i)a_i²))

We tinker with the formula by replacing wealth with wealth shares, y_i, and instead of ranks, the population shares and what we have is:

1-((1/x_n)(Σ(x_n-x_i)a_ib_i)/(Σ(x_n-x_i)a_i²))


I am not sure about Badenes-Plá's method satisfying the third property, but our tinkering of that method will satisfy the three properties that we have discussed earlier, but they are not the same as the area under the Lorenz curve normalized by the area under total possible inequality. Thus, I would strongly suggest our proposed method. To reiterate,

(1-2(Σ_ia_ib_i/2+Σ_i(1-x_i)b_i))/(1-a_n)

A final problem is that our method has been ignoring the population, N. The question that comes to mind is the richest group having all the wealth is not the same as only one single individual having all the wealth. In such case, the area above the Lorenz curve will fall sort of (1/2) by a factor of (1/N)/2, not a_n/2. This means we deal with discrete data or consider an additional group and both these can be handled with our suggested method. A note of caution for discrete data is that the third property will not hold because our correction factor will be population dependent. This is fine, because when we consider one individual as an independent group it also means that the population cannot be replicated.

Calculating Gini Coefficient from Grouped Data

Today while trying to calculate gini coefficient from a grouped data, I was stuck as my formula was in office. A quick search in the web was not very helpful. I came across some literature on its underestimation, and hence, the need for calculating lower and upper bounds. Finally, I had to work it out myself on the back of an envelop using a Lorenz curve. I thought of sharing it with others.

We have a population divided into i=1,...,n groups, which have been ordered from the poorest to the richest. Let X-axis denote cummulative share of population, x_i, and let Y-axis denote cummulative share of wealth (or, something like that), y_i. The shares of population and wealth for each group is denoted as a_i and b_i respectively. If we compute the area below the Lorenz curve then the Gini coefficient formula is:

1-2(Σ_ia_ib_i/2+Σ_i(1-x_i)b_i)

This does reasonably well, but suffers from the lower/upper bound problems, that is, it will not give the value of zero and unity for complete equality and complete inequality respectively. However, there is a very interesting formula in Approximation of Gini Index from Grouped Data by Badenes-Plá (this paper is not to be quoted, but available on-line). I tinker with it and get a formula that corrects for the lower/upper bounds.

1-((Σ_i(1-x_i)a_ib_i)/(Σ_i(1-x_i)(a_i)²))

If instead of wealth, we are dealing with share of poor (or some other deprivation) then X-axis denotes proportion of poor and Y-axis denotes proportion of population. The above formula continues. This formula can also be used for unit level data whether weighted or unweighted, but one should be careful in calculating the shares. Happy computing.

The Non-Econometrician's Lament

This poem was brought to our notice by Professor Nachane: "While going through the references for one of my articles on Business Cycles, I came across this gem of a poem from Sir D.H.Robertson, an economist of an earlier generation (and for those of you who may not have heard of him, he was at one time a friend and rival of the great Lord Keynes)." Sir Dennis H. Robertson who also contributed a lot to Monetary theory and of course with Pigou 'Those Empty Boxes'. But, for now read on "The Non-Econometrician's Lament."

------------------------------------------
"As soon as I could safely toddle
My parents handed me a Model;
My brisk and energetic pater
Provided the accelerator.
My mother, with her kindly gumption,
The function guiding my consumption;
And every week I had from her
A lovely new parameter,
With lots of little leads and lags
In pretty parabolic bags.

With optimistic expectations
I started on my explorations,
And swore to move without a swerve
Along my sinusoidal curve.
Alas! I knew how it would end:
I've mixed the cycle with the trend,
And fear that, growing daily skinnier,
I have at length become non-linear.
I wander glumly round the house
As though I were exogenous,
And hardly capable of feeling
The difference 'tween floor and ceiling.
I scarcely now, a pallid ghost,
Can tell ex ante from ex post:
My thoughts are sadly inelastic,
My acts invariably stochastic."
------------------------------------------

Sir Dennis H. Robertson (Presented at the International Economic Association Conference on Business Cycles, Oxford, 1952 and published in the proceedings edited by Erik Lundberg, Macmillan 1955)

I would like to reiterate the last two lines.

"My thoughts are sadly inelastic,
My acts invariably stochastic."

They add icing to the cake. They are like diamond studs in the necklace made up of gems.