MNCs Devouring the Natural Resources of Developing Countries

COUNTRIES SEEK GREATER DEVELOPMENT GAINS FROM FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRY

Higher commodity prices have led to increased foreign direct investment in extractive industries, and especially in low-income countries, transnational corporations (TNCs) dominate the extraction of natural resources, UNCTAD´s annual review of investment trends reports.

TNC involvement provides both opportunities and challenges for developing countries, the World Investment Report 2007 concludes. This year´s report is subtitled Transnational Corporations, Extractive Industries and Development(1). It says that maximizing development gains from such industries requires coherent and well-designed policies that reflect a commitment to the public good by all involved.

The universe of extractive-industry TNCs is diverse and new players are emerging

Rising demand, especially from Asia, for oil, gas, and metals has spurred an investment boom in mineral exploration and extraction. Those industries account largely for the recent increases in foreign direct investment (FDI) in many mineral-rich developing countries, notably in Africa. The boom has also triggered a series of cross-border mega mergers in these industries, resulting in higher market concentration.

The World Investment Report 2007 shows that the relative importance of TNCs varies between different extractive industries. In metal mining, 23 of the top 25 producers in 2005 were privately owned TNCs, whereas only 2 were majority State-owned. In oil and gas, the majority of the top 50 producers were majority State-owned. Most such production was controlled by State-owned companies from developing and transition economies. For example, in 2005, the production of Saudi Aramco (Saudi Arabia) was more than twice that of the largest privately owned oil and gas producer, ExxonMobil (United States).

The report also highlights the rise of new extractive-industry TNCs. While private companies remain the largest corporations in terms of foreign assets, a number of developing-country firms, especially in the oil and gas industry, are rapidly becoming global players. The combined overseas production of the seven most important State-owned companies -- CNOOC, CNPC, Sinopec (all China), Lukoil (Russia), ONGC (India), Petrobras (Brazil) and Petronas (Malaysia) -- exceeded 528 million barrels of oil equivalent in 2005, up from only 22 million 10 years earlier (figure 1). Their overseas expansion is partly driven by rising demand in Asia´s fast-growing economies.

TNCs dominate extractive activities, especially in low-income countries

In a number of low-income countries, investment in extractive industries makes up the bulk of inward FDI. Due to small domestic markets and weak production capabilities, these countries tend to have few other industries to which they can attract significant FDI. Consequently, revenues from mineral exploitation and exports often represent a very large share of their national incomes.

While the extent to which countries rely on TNCs for exploitation of their natural resources varies, low-income countries are generally the most dependent on foreign companies. In metal mining, foreign affiliates account for virtually all of the (non-artisanal) production in least developed countries (LDCs) such as Guinea, Mali, the United Republic of Tanzania, and Zambia, as well as in Argentina, Botswana, Gabon, Ghana, Mongolia, Namibia, and Papua New Guinea. In another 10 metal-producing countries, the shares of foreign affiliates account for between 50% and 86% of production (figure 2).

In oil and gas, foreign affiliates in 2005 accounted for 57% on average of the output of sub-Saharan Africa. For example, foreign companies accounted for more than half of production in Angola, Equatorial Guinea and Sudan (figure 3). Foreign affiliates account for significant production shares in other countries as well, including Argentina, Indonesia and the United Kingdom. In West Asia, however, where the largest and richest reserves of oil and gas are located, the corresponding share was a mere 3%. No production was attributed to foreign affiliates in Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.

TNC participation can have significant impacts on host economies

UNCTAD argues that the commodities boom should provide opportunities for development and poverty alleviation in mineral-exporting countries. But considerable efforts to address the economic, environmental, social, and political issues relating to mineral extraction are necessary for harnessing the earnings from extractive industries to boost development.

TNCs can influence the outcome. They may contribute capital, technology, and management skills -- and when domestic capabilities are lacking, such an approach is often the most viable option for exploiting natural resource wealth. The most important economic impact of foreign investment in a country´s extractive industry is increased income, including government revenue. At the same time, UNCTAD notes, TNC involvement can raise concerns about unequal bargaining power, ownership and control over non-renewable resources, rent-sharing, transfer pricing, and various environmental and social costs. For example, TNCs claim a significant share of the revenue generated and repatriate part of their profits.

Ultimately, the overall impact of revenue generated will be determined by the way it is shared between the foreign companies and the host country, and on how the government´s portion of the revenue is managed, distributed and used. Funds should be used to support development objectives and the needs of current and future generations.

The extraction of natural resources can have far-reaching environmental, social and political consequences. TNC participation may add to environmental degradation and social conflicts simply by making resource extraction possible in a country. On the other hand, TNCs may reduce adverse environmental consequences by using more advanced technologies and by applying and diffusing higher standards of environmental management than domestic companies employ. TNCs can also become embroiled in local conflicts and may find themselves acting against the interests of local communities. In some cases, their mere presence may strengthen the existing governmental order. Some TNCs take adverse social impacts into account and abide by higher standards than their competitors do in dealing with such issues.

To confront policy challenges, efforts by all stakeholders are needed

A concerted effort by all concerned is necessary to ensure that the vast mineral resources located in some of the world´s poorest countries become a force for development. "The objective is to ensure that investments are undertaken in the most efficient and environmentally friendly manner possible, and to ensure that they contribute to poverty alleviation and accelerated development. For that, institutional and regulatory frameworks must be promoted by accountable governments as well as responsible investors," United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon recently remarked.

The report makes a number of recommendations:

• The quality of governance, specific government policies and institutions of the host country are a determining factor for ensuring sustainable development gains from resource extraction, with or without TNC involvement. Governments need a clear vision and strategy to ensure that oil and other mineral resources are used in a transparent and equitable manner to contribute to sustainable development. They also need to strengthen their abilities and capacities for designing and implementing appropriate policies.
• High mineral prices have led many governments to seek to increase their share of the profits generated by amending mining codes, fiscal regimes, and contracts. Recent regulatory changes in developed, developing, and transition economies suggest that previous regulations may have been overly generous to foreign investors. The report recommends that countries seek to develop frameworks that are robust over the different phases of the business cycle, for example by introducing progressive taxation systems for the revenues from extractive industries.
• Home-country governments should promote responsible behaviour by TNCs investing in extractive industries abroad. This is equally important for State-owned TNCs.
• The international community can help promote greater development gains from resource extraction through technical assistance, the development of relevant standards and guidelines, and the monitoring of their implementation. A number of initiatives, such as the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, and the Global Reporting Initiative, can provide valuable input, but more countries and companies need to commit to and implement these standards.
• The role of TNCs is to contribute to efficient production while, at a minimum, respecting host country laws. When mineral deposits are located in weakly governed or authoritarian States, foreign companies need to consider carefully the implications of investing there.

Tables and figures

Figure 1. Oil and gas production of selected TNCs outside their home country, 2006

(Millions of barrels of oil equivalent)

World Investment report-2007

Highlights

World Investment Report 2007 (WIR07) is the seventeenth in a series published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The Report analyses the latest trends in foreign direct investment (FDI) and puts a special focus in 2007 on the role of transnational corporations (TNCs) in the extraction of oil, gas, and metal minerals.

Higher prices for many minerals have led to renewed investor interest in the extractive industries. TNCs ? including some of the world´s largest corporations ? play a key role in the mining of metals and in the extraction of oil and gas. Privately owned TNCs dominate the harvesting of metal minerals, while State-owned companies from developing and transition economies are key players in oil and gas. Many such State-owned firms are emerging as TNCs in their own right.

Drawing on unique data, the Report examines TNC involvement in the extraction of mineral resources and maps the key countries and companies. It also discusses how the forces driving investment change as raw materials progress up the "value chain" to become finished products, and as different types of companies participate. In view of recent discussion of the so-called "resource curse," the Report explores how the participation of TNCs may help or hinder long-term, broad-based economic development in developing countries -- the best approach for reducing poverty and raising living standards. It considers how energy and mineral extraction can help governments achieve such aims.

As in previous years, WIR07 presents the latest data on FDI and traces global and regional trends in FDI and in international production by TNCs. Global FDI inflows rose in 2006 for the third consecutive year. This growth was shared by all major country groups: developed countries, developing countries and the transition-economies of South-East Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States . Rising demand for commodities was reflected in a steep increase in natural resource-related FDI, although the services sector continued to be the dominant recipient of FDI. Among the developing regions, FDI inflows to subregions such as North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, West Asia, South Asia, East Asia, and South-East Asia were at record levels, as were foreign investment flows to transition economies.

Who is Responsible for Farmers Suicide?

Vidyanand Acharya

On 15^th August 2006, when the Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh was addressing the nation and highlighting the farmers problems from the parapet of the red fort, at the same time a debt ridden cotton farmer of Vidarbha ended their life by consuming the pesticides available in his house. He was not in position to repay the bank loan he had taken for his cotton farming. At the Red Fort august gathering was happily clapping on the lofty announcement by the Prime Minister and on the other hand relatives of the deceased were mourning the sudden demise of their family member.

Manohar Kelkar was the name of one of the thousands of farmers those who opted suicides as the only option available to their gigantic problems. Unfortunately, the suicide by Manohar didn’t solve the problems as the widow and children. Manohar was under severe debt at the time of suicide and at present there is no one to look after the family members and their children. In reality, the farmer’s suicide in Vidarbha has become a routine event. In Vidarbha, farmers in every eight-hour have committed suicide either by consuming pesticides or poison or hanged themselves. The Vidarbha story of farmers suicide is gruesome but almost similar trends of farmers’ suicide is also spreading in other parts of the country. Suicide counts of farmers of Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Karnataka etc are on the rise.

Countless suicides

In Vidarbha alone, the farmers suicides between June 2006 to June 2007 reached to more than 755. In last one fortnight more than 15 farmers committed suicide due to unbearable burden of agri-debt. But the government authorities including Chief Minister Vilas Rao Deshmukh denied accepting the figures of farmers suicide a real one. It is to be noted that the Union Agriculture Minister, Shri Sharad Pawar in a written reply to the question raised by a parliamentarian, had accepted that 137,621 farmers till date have committed suicide across the nation. But in public meeting agriculture minister use to cite the data of cricket scores made by India and not the farmer suicide. He has no pain for the farmers suicide in India for once he quoted in a press conference that the percentage of farmers suicide in India is very low with respect to total suicides in India. Mumbai based renowned research center, Tata Institue of Social Science (TISS), in its report has accepted the suicide by farmers at alarming high.

Start of the tragedy

The early nineties witnessed the first farmer suicide in India. The first occurrences of the farmers’ suicide was reported from Maharastra and later on similar news were reported from other states also like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Punjab. This indicated that not only the cotton farmers but farmers producing other crops, irrespective of their holding size, committed suicide after new economic policies adopted in India. The new economic policies adopted in late eighties and early nineties seriously affected the life style of the common man. The farmers also trapped in the new style of farming abandoning the traditional one. As a result the agriculture became the negative economy for the farmers. The unexpected increase in the costs of production and falling prices of farm commodities compelled the farmers to either give up the peasantry or commit suicides.

The epidemic of farmers' suicide is the real barometer of the stress under which Indian agriculture and Indian farmers have been put by globalization and liberalization of agriculture. The spread of capital-intensive agriculture and indebtedness became inevitable outcome of the corporate model of industrial agriculture.

Under new market and export oriented corporate agriculture regime the seed sector was forced to open up for the multinationals seed companies like Monsanto, Cargill and Syngenta. These global corporations changed the India’s agricultural input economy overnight. Domestic seed industries saved by farmers were replaced by corporate seeds, which needed more water, fertilizers and pesticides. Thus farming was not possible without taking loans from either the banks or local money lenders at increased rate of interest.

Relief package failure

In June 2006, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Vidarbha and announced a financial relief package worth Rs 3,750 crores to the farmers of vidarbha. The moment money came to Vidarbha/ Maharastra administration, manipulation and corruption to relief money started by groups of vested interest. The main players who diverted the money to the cooperatives of Maharastra were the leaders of ruling Congress and NCP alliance. Kishor Tiwari, leader of Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti, a social movemnt spearheading the farmers’ movement in Vidarbha for last a decade and more, accused the state government for gross failure in relief distribution. Tiwari said that relief package of Prime Minister failed to address the real problem of suicide monger farmers of vidarbha that is credit and cost. Cooperatives and banks are the real gainer of the relief package, said Kishor Tiwari.

Out of 3,750 crore, 710 crore were given to the banks as interest waiver that has drastically reduced the NPA of Banks. In return banks released Rs 840 crore as crop loan to the cotton farmers. How ever NABARD failed to increase the crop loan. The data produced by the banks shows that for current financial year only two lacs farmers have given fresh loan as against eight lakh last year. Similarly, Rs. 2460 crore was sanctioned for major and minor irrigation projects out of which only 231 crore was released on paper. This resulted in no significant change in irrigation areas in comparison to last year in the affected area. The amount sanctioned to organic style of farming was totally ignored by the state administration.

Kishor Tiwari revealed another interesting story of corruption involved in the relief package. He said that in every district a committee was constituted to identify the farmers who committed suicides. District Magistrate headed the committee along with two farmers representatives. Paradoxically in each committee the farmers’ representative were either the leaders of Congress Party or the Nationalistic Congress Party. As a result out of 1200 suicides 890 cases were rejected by the district and state administration. This clearly shows that even Prime Minister office has failed to monitor the relief package given to the farmers of Vidarbha and to the other state also. (Pl. see the box)

Farmers Widows cheated

Last year Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh announced Rs one lakh of financial assistance to each widows of the farmers who committed suicide. The state and district administration were told to implement the order on war foot level. But the cheques given to the widows were of fewer amounts. In more than hundred instances the bearer cheques even bounced back. The Prime Minister press secretary in press conference at delhi denied the facts of ceque bounce but Raksesh Tiwari of VJAS said that Prime Minister office is not aware of the reality of the Vidarbha farmers. One such affected women is Vandana Anil Shende from Yavatmal, the widow of Anil Shende who committed suicides. She was given a bearer cheque of Rs. 10,000 only by the district administration against a lakh announced by Prime Minister. She deposited this cheque in her account and after few days she was told that her cheque had bounced. The issue came into lime light. People like Kishore Tiwari raised this issue as betrayal to the farmers’ widow by Prime Minister. Only after honourable state high court intervention the issues were sorted out.

Who is responsible?

More and more affected farmers are directly blaming state policy - not drought or floods - for their misery. Some confront the Government in tragic ways. Some of the suicide notes of farmers are talking directly to Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and even to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

"Don't blame my family members for my action, I will never forgive anybody who does." Suicide note of young Kuchankar reveals. And in one poignant sentence, addresses the 19-year-old girl he had wed just six months ago: "Pratibha, I am sorry. Please get remarried." He blames the procurement price for cotton as the source of farmers' distress. "We are fed up with the delay in procurement and crashing prices. This will further aggravate the situation."

His message to Mr. Deshmukh: "Mr. Chief Minister give us the price." And to Home Minister R.R. Patil "if you do not give us a price of Rs.3,000 per quintal, suicides will surge." Kuchankar wrote: "The cotton price has fallen to Rs.1,990 a quintal. We cannot manage with that. Which is why I am giving up my life." The suicide note is a bunch of anguished scribbles across a sheet of paper.

The suicide note of cotton grower Ramakrishna Lonkar in Wardha district wrote, "After the Prime Minister's visit and announcements of a fresh crop loan, I thought I could live again, but, he concluded, he found nothing had changed on the credit front or on other policies.

It is shame on the system when the name of chief Minister, Prime Minister appears responsible for the suicide of the farmers in their suicide notes. This is clear indication of the systemic failure of the regime.

Table-1

Chronological account of farmers suicide

Month Farm suicides District Farm suicides

July-2006 90 Yavatmal 283

August -2006 111 Amarawati

180

September-2006 124 Akola 131

October-2006 112 Washim 151

November-2006 107 Buldhana 145

December-2006 105 Wardha 104

January-2007 70 Nagpur 27

February-2007 86 Bhandara 32

March-2007 82 Chandrapur 41

April-2007 90 Gadhchiroli 12

May-2007 79 Gondia 14

June-2007 64

Total- 1120 Total 1120

Source-VJAS blog

Box-1

PM’s panel finds fault with his package on farm suicides

Over a year after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced a Rs 17,000-crore package for alleviating the agrarian crisis in 31 districts hit by farmer suicides — in Vidarbha, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala — the expert group he set up on rural indebtedness has criticised the implementation of the PM’s package calling for “urgent corrections.”

The key findings of the report, authored by the task force headed by Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research director R Radhakrishna:

• No coordination between different agencies implementing the schemes: Credit component being managed by Finance, watershed and rainwater initiatives by NABARD, irrigation by Water Resources Ministry, extension services, seeds by Department of Agriculture, livestock by Departments of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries. Each ministry’s working in isolation.

• No information available on impact of the scheme on people. Need to fix physical targets and introduce monitoring and mid-term evaluation.

• The package (to be implemented until 2008-09) is “universal” in nature not taking into account the fact that causes of distress differ across districts. For instance, in some it’s crop failure; in others, it’s price collapse.

• On extension services, Karnataka’s performance poor. Extension services have a pivotal role in distress but are not the priority when it comes to budgeting.

• On financial targets, most states fall far short. On waiver of interest, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra exceeded targets but Kerala achieved only 54% of the target. On loan rescheduling, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra exceeded targets but Kerala achieved only 43%. Again, on fresh loan disbursements, Kerala and Maharashtra exceeded targets but the other two states could only meet two-thirds of their targets.

• Gap in off-take of fresh credit indicates credit needs of farmers not assessed accurately. Credit flow targets do not appear to have been based on a proper assessment of the credit absorption capacity at the farm/household level. Disbursements should have been made only after proper project appraisal.

• Progress on watershed development extremely poor in all the states. Even Maharashtra, which had in place a shelf of sanctioned projects, could utilise only 12% of its financial allocation of Rs 54 crore in the year. Kerala falls under high rainfall area and no watershed projects are being implemented.

• Rainwater harvesting, construction of check dams non-starters in most districts. NABARD yet to receive proposals from any of the states for check dams.

• Major irrigation schemes delayed because of red tape and slew of sanctions.

Novartis to Capture Indian Drug Market

Novartis to Capture Indian Drug Market

- Vidyanand Acharya

Case filed by Novartis will negatively impact access to medicines for millions across the world.

Multinational drug manu facturing company No vartis has posed a serious threat to the Indian drug and health industry. A legal challenge by Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis against India’s patent law could restrict access to affordable medicines in the developing world including India. Pharmaceutical giant Novartis proceeded with its legal challenge against the Indian government in a court hearing in Chennai on 29th January 2007. The court has put a new date in last week of this month. Meanwhile, organisations like - The Indian Network for People with HIV/AIDS (INP+), the People’s Health Movement, the Centre for Trade and Development (Centad), together with the international medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), have expressed their concern about the negative impact that company’s actions could have on access to medicines in developing countries and called on the company to immediately cease its legal action in India.

India has long been an important source of affordable essential medicines because the country did not grant pharmaceutical patents until 2005. Generic antiretroviral medicines produced in India are used to treat over 80% of the 80,000 people that receive treatment today in more than 30 countries. India’s law contains provisions that help put people before patents, but Novartis is taking the Indian government to court to force a change in the law. The company is challenging a key public health safeguard enshrined within India’s Patents Act that aims to restrict the granting of trivial patents. If Novartis gets its way, it could mean that essential drugs are more likely to be patented in India, thereby restricting generic production and keeping prices for newer medicines high.

“Novartis is trying to shut down the pharmacy of the developing world,” said Dr. Unni Karunakara, Medical Director of MSF’s Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines, at a press briefing in New Delhi. “We cannot stand by and let Novartis turn off the tap” said Dr. Unni. It is to be noted that Novartis was one of the 39 companies that took the South African government to court over five years ago in an effort to prevent the government from importing cheaper AIDS medicines. This time again the company is doing the same unfair practice in India. the company is challenging a specific provision in India’s patent law that restricts patenting of medicines to innovations only. If the provision were overturned, patents would be granted far more widely in India, heavily restricting the production of affordable medicines that has become crucial to the treatment of diseases across the developing world.

Rules of the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) obliged India to begin reviewing pharmaceutical patents in 2005. The TRIPS agreement, however, includes pro-public health safeguards that countries can implement, and India has merely included some of these in its patent law. The Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health, signed by governments in 2001, reinforced the right of countries to use these safeguards.

“The TRIPS Agreement already makes it difficult for India to produce the affordable drugs that people need,” said Gopakumar of Centad. “By challenging the pro-public health safeguards in the Indian law, Novartis is going even further and is trying to undo the Doha Declaration, restricting access to medicines.” If Novartis wins the case and succeeds in getting the provision of Indian law changed to resemble patent laws in wealthy countries, patents may be granted in India as broadly as they are in wealthy countries. This will mean that fewer and possibly no generic versions of newer drugs will be able to be produced by Indian manufacturers during the patent terms of at least 20 years, and India will no longer be able to supply much of the developing world with cheap essential medicines, said Gopa Kumar of Centad.

Employment and Unemployment Situation

Employment and Unemployment Situation among Major Religious Groups in India, 2004-05

“Employment and Unemployment Situation among Major Religious Groups in India, 2004–2005”- Report No.521 based on the data of the seventh quinquennial survey of employment and unemployment in India carried out by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) in the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India, as part of the 61^st round of the NSS, has been released. This report is the fifth in the series of seven reports to be brought out on the basis of employment and unemployment data of the NSS 61^st round. In this survey, among many other details, information on religion was collected as part of the household characteristics. The major religious groups distinguished in the survey included Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Budddhists and Zoroastrians. It is important to note that the religion of the head of the household was considered as the religion of all the household members irrespective of the actual religion practiced by individual members. Since the sample sizes for the religious groups other than Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Sikhs were either very small, even at all India level or were concentrated in only a few States / U.Ts, results in this report have been presented only for these major religious groups.

All States / Union Territories were covered by the survey except some interior areas of Nagaland, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, and Ladakh and Kargil districts of Jammu & Kashmir. This survey was spread over a sample of 7999 villages and 4602 urban blocks covering 1,24,680 sample households (79306 in the rural areas and 45374 in the urban areas). Out of the 1,24,680 households surveyed at the national level, households reporting religion as Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Sikhism were 95066, 14785, 8575 and 3037 respectively. The number of households surveyed for other religions i.e., those reporting their religion, as Jainism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism or others, together, was 3,217 at the all-India level.

Some of the important findings of the survey contained in this report are given below:

In rural areas, about 84 per cent of households having 83 per cent of population followed Hinduism whereas 10 per cent of households followed Islam with about 12 per cent of population. Further, about 2 per cent of households and population followed Christianity. In urban areas, the percentage of households and population were about 80 and 77 respectively for Hinduism, 13 and 16 for Islam and 3 and 3 for Christianity. Even after excluding the state of Jammu and Kashmir, having different geographical coverage in different NSS rounds, the proportion of persons by major religious groups virtually remained unchanged.

· In the rural areas, ‘self-employment’ was the mainstay for all the religious groups. About 37 per cent of Hindu households were dependent on ‘self-employment in agriculture’. The corresponding proportion was 35 per cent for the Christians and 26 per cent for the Muslims. The proportions of households depending on ‘self-employment in non-agriculture’ were 14 per cent for the Hindus, 28 per cent for the Muslims and 15 per cent for the Christians. In the case of ‘rural labour’ households, the proportions varied from 32 per cent (Muslims) to 37 per cent (Hindus). In urban India, the proportion of Hindu households depending on ‘self-employment’, ‘regular wage/salary’ and ‘casual labour’ were 36 per cent, 43 per cent and 12 per cent respectively, whereas the corresponding shares for the Muslims were 49 per cent, 30 per cent and 14 per cent respectively and for the Christians 27 per cent, 47 per cent and 11 per cent respectively.

The Christians had the lowest illiteracy rate both for rural (20 per cent for males and 31 per cent for females) and urban areas (6 per cent for males and 11 per cent for females). Except for rural females, the proportion of literates among the Hindus was higher than that among the Muslims. Among the males in the rural areas, the literacy rates for Hindus and Muslims were 68 per cent and 63 per cent respectively. In case of urban males, the literacy rates for Hindus and Muslims were 89 per cent and 77 per cent respectively. Among the females in the urban areas, the literacy rates for Hindus and Muslims were 73 per cent and 60 per cent respectively. Among the rural females, the illiteracy rates were almost equal among the Hindus and the Muslims (59 per cent).

In the rural areas, Worker Population Ratio (WPR) among the males was highest among Christians (56 per cent) followed by Hindus (55 per cent). The corresponding figure for Muslims was lower (50 per cent). As in the case of males, WPR for females among Christians (36 per cent) and Hindus (34 per cent) was much higher than that among Muslims (18 per cent). In urban India, the WPR among the males was the highest among Hindus (56 per cent) followed by Muslims (53 per cent) and the Christians (51 per cent). The WPR for Christian women (24 per cent) was much higher than that among Hindu (17 per cent) and Muslim women (12 per cent).

For the rural males in the age group 15 years and above, WPR in the educational level secondary and above was the highest among the Hindus (76 per cent) followed by the Christians (72 per cent) and the Muslims (67 per cent). However in urban areas, it was equal (71 per cent) among Muslims and Hindus and lower (64 per cent) among Christians. For the rural females in the same age group with same education level, however, the rates were highest among the Christians (37 per cent) followed by Hindus (30 per cent) and Muslims (18 per cent). Similar pattern was also observed among urban females in the same age group.

More than half of the workers in the rural areas were self-employed, the proportion being the highest among the Muslim workers for both males (60 per cent) and females (75 per cent). In the urban areas also, the same pattern is observed. The proportion of regular wage/salaried workers was highest among Christians in both rural and urban areas among both males and females. The proportion of casual labourers was highest among Hindus for females in both rural (34 per cent) and urban (18 per cent) areas.

In rural areas, the unemployment rates (URs) were higher among the Christians (4.4 per cent) as compared to those among the Hindus (1.5 per cent) or the Muslims (2.3 per cent). In the urban areas also same pattern was observed. However, the URs in urban areas were more or less same for Hindu and Muslims (4 per cent). Further URs for females were generally higher in all major religious groups as compared to males in both rural and urban areas. The UR was highest (14 per cent) among the urban Christian women.