*Well, we don’t really know if he is dead. Various theories are doing the rounds at the moment
The strange thing about the Kim clan is that according to a legend, they are all descendants of Princess Suriratna, who travelled from a distant kingdom to marry the progenitor of the tribe. If you believe the legend, she came from Ayodhya. Yes, that very same Ayodhya that we know of. Of course, this does not explain anything about the Kim dynasty of North Korea, which ruled like kings in that isolated yet nuclear-capable rogue nation. The founder of the dynasty, Kim Il-Sung, apparently descended from heaven at Mount Paektu, a “holy mountain” near the Korean-Chinese border. The creation myth of the clan obviously borrows from religious texts because the one mistake that most people make is considering North Korea to be a communist State. It may be the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea, but in reality the best term to describe North Korea’s governance system is to call it a “theocratic monarchy” where the word of Kim is the law.
That brings us to the latest Kim in the chain, the grandson of the founder, Kim Jong-un and the younger son of Kim Jong-Il. While there is little news about Kim Jong-un of late, with sources in Seoul and Washington contradicting each other and a studied silence from Beijing, one can assume that things are not exactly hunky-dory in Pyongyang. We do not know whether the North Korean leader is dead or not but we must assume he has been incapacitated to some degree. But why are we getting so edgy about his whereabouts? Of course, because he is the leader of a tiny country but boasts of an active and advanced nuclear weapons programme. This brings us to the question, who next for the Kim dynasty? The smart money is on Kim Yo-Jong, Kim Jong-un’s younger sister. We already know that male primogeniture is not the way the clan operates as Kim Jong-un removed his elder (half) brother Kim Jong-Nam through one of the most bizarre assassinations in history at the Kuala Lumpur airport. But then there is “the uncle,” Kim Pyong-Il, who was brought back to Pyongyang last year after being sidelined for almost a decade as Ambassador to various nations. But any intelligence official, who knows what is going on in North Korea, is possibly just as clueless as you or me. The fact is that we have no idea of what will happen next and if Kim Jong-un is really dead or he is just undead. Sorry for the pun but we are still watching events to see who is next to sit on the Kim throne.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
Schools are the worst hit by the virus as they are gateways to a child’s engagement with the world. Now, there’s just fear
There is no doubt that apart from public health and the economy, the Coronavirus has hit our education system hard. As colleges and universities deal with truncated courses in a revised academic calendar and resort to e-learning, these are at best half-baked measures. Simply because digital connectivity, accessibility and affordability are big challenges in India’s vast, underprivileged hinterland and dots of cities are not representative enough as an alternative model of instruction. Only frontline universities are on some sort of digital grid but the rest are not. Also, students, who made it back home before the lockdown, may not be able to tune in depending on tele-connectivity issues in their home States. The percentage of people who were able to use the internet pan-India was 20.1 per cent, with rural at 13 per cent and urban at 37.1 per cent. Only 10.8 per cent of Indians used the internet in the last 30 days. Also, while senior students fret and fume over career-making tests and admissions, very little is being thought about the primary and middle schools, most of which rely on an interactive, visual and physical format of teaching. Schools and colleges are also about a natural rhythm of life. For children, they are the first experiences of life outside the cocoon of a home, the first mode of engagement with nature and the wider world. School learning being an integral part of the development process of a child, the emphasis on theoretical lessons than practical knowledge may turn out to be more of a drill. The problems encountered by students on account of home tutoring are varied. Besides, even if projects are commissioned online for execution at home, the tools for doing so, namely paper, pencils, paints, stencils, cardboards and so on, are not available now, figuring as they do in the non-essential list. Sometimes parents are ill-equipped to teach older children. In the countryside, it is worse because parents send their offspring to school simply because of the mid-day meal programme. No school means we are staring at a major nutritional deficiency among children till the secondary level. Psychologists are already fearing that this could be an emotionally scarred generation as they are confined indoors for prolonged periods based on a fear of the unknown. Besides, there are far too many gaps in online education for seniors, too, at this point of time. Lectures and teaching may have resumed without much hindrance but without access to libraries and laboratories, there is no way of gauging students’ application skills.
It was to tackle such issues that two expert committees were formed to look into the ways of conducting exams in universities amid the lockdown and work on an academic calendar in a post-Covid scenario. Keeping in mind region-specific challenges, the recommendations include allowing universities the flexibility to conduct online courses and exams, depending on the availability of facilities. Further, the panel has suggested a six-day class schedule post-normalcy to make up for the lost time and a 40 per cent weightage to online performance in grading students. Experts have also recommended a more holistic assessment module whereby teachers can factor in the marks obtained by students in the last academic year to evaluate their consistency and then decide their grades. Presentation-based assessments and a two-hour exam module instead of the previous three-hour format are also on the cards. Indeed, such clarity was badly needed to keep students, particularly the younger lot, invested in signing up for online classes in the first place. Besides, a graded exit strategy means there is already an added performance pressure on students to finish their courses faster than usual. At the moment, student anxieties are focussed on incomplete board exams, which need to be completed either online or offline, depending on the lockdown continuity. Going forward, policy makers need to revitalise our education satellite programmes as a credible distance learning tool. Counselling sessions need to be organised to help students absorb the impact of social distancing from their peers. There needs to be a new discipline for the rough and tumble of sports or even cultural group activities. Of course, in the longer run, the education budget, like that of health, needs to be hiked. Enhanced social sector budgeting can only rescue us in the long haul if we want to capitalise on India’s young demographics.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
As we grapple with the pandemic, one wonders what happened to the world health watchdog and global governance structures that were built in order to counter this sort of crisis
In the months during which the Coronavirus outbreak has been afoot, it has laid bare the vulnerability and helplessness of an interdependent and interlinked world to the ravages that can be unleashed by a rapidly spreading novel communicable disease. The question one asks at this moment is, why is this so?
What happened to the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the global governance structures that were built in order to counter this sort of crisis? Didn’t the world learn anything from the earlier outbreaks of communicable diseases like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), Swine flu (H1N1) and so on? The entire healthcare governance at the global level simply crumbled like a house of cards. There is complete disarray and confusion around the world, when ideally global protocols should have been in place to control the spread of the disease.
What has been witnessed during the pandemic is that countries have tended to act independently. More in tune with their domestic requirements (cultural pride, market demands and so on) rather than in a coordinated fashion as part of a global governance network.
On the one hand, the Chinese authorities had sought to suppress information regarding the appearance of the new virus (by some accounts the Chinese are still hiding the real numbers), while on the other hand a unified response to the disease, which was expected from the world and international institutions like the WHO (once its gravity became evident) was completely absent and is absent even today.
Nothing highlights the lack of coordination between countries better than the testing regime for the Coronavirus initiated by South Korea and the US. While South Korea made the testing of CoVID-19 free for its citizens, in the US testing was a paid endeavour in the initial days, which resulted in delayed identification of infected individuals and led to the rapid spread of the disease.
While the Chinese may be at fault in their failure to warn the world about the outbreak of the highly infectious disease right at its onset, their propaganda is correct to an extent that the developed world, with all its technological prowess, has surrendered before the Coronavirus. This begs the question, what has caused the failure of global healthcare governance?
The WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared CoVID-19 as a pandemic (rather late in the day) and asked countries to undertake preventive and protective public health measures that “strike a fine balance between protecting health, preventing economic and social disruption and respecting human rights.”
The WHO, while rightly emphasising the need to respect human rights, appears to have simply laid the responsibility of containing the pandemic along with the responsibility of preventing social and economic disruption, on national healthcare systems, which are patchy and inefficient in most of the developing countries.
Ideally it should have been at the forefront of the Corona war, advising countries on the protocols that needed to be followed. Instead its response was slow, confused and inconsistent. It doesn’t take a genius to imagine what the situation in developing countries would be when developed countries with better healthcare systems were unable to contain the virus.
As the pandemic has shown us, the spread of a contagion in any major economy will have reverberating effects on the entire global economy. Thus it cannot be the job of national governments alone to halt the spread of disease. It has to be a joint effort between the countries with the global health watchdog leading from the front.
However, the statement of the Director-General, which came out rather belatedly, was in the form of a recommendation rather than a concrete plan of action for nations to follow. It indicated a complete lack of power to effectively engage in governance of healthcare around the world and adopt a leadership role in the hour of crisis.
The reason behind the incapacity of the WHO to effectively engage in global healthcare governance appears to be the North-South divide that permeates international relations. This invisible line has divided the world into the global developing South, which comprises the underdeveloped and developing countries and the wealthy, industrialised North.
The countries of the global South are plagued with problems, in differing measure, of poverty, lack of respect for human rights, absence of democratic governance and so on, along with a deep distrust of the industrialised countries, who are perceived to be ready to use every instrument to control policy-making of the developing nations, for their own economic gains.
The developed countries, in the industrialised North on the other hand, have either left the global South to its devices or are attempting to provide strait-jacketed solutions to problems, instead of sharing the global governance space with them, in which an acceptable solution to the problems of the global South could be arrived at.
This exclusion of the South from participation has further fuelled the perception that developed countries are only interested in subverting governance of developing nations for their own economic gains. CoVID-19 has rudely awakened the world to the fact that the dividing line between the global North and South is not so wide as it appears to be and the North cannot ignore the problems of the South — be it human rights violations or poor healthcare — as something alien to them.
What is the solution then? The existing global governance architecture has fallen woefully short in managing the interdependencies and integration between countries. This is partly due to the speed of globalisation which accentuates these interdependencies and partly due to the Westphalian principles of sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of States.
What is required at this juncture is a novel governance model which is based on international cooperation. This governance model should respect sovereignty but only to the extent that it does not cause hindrance in addressing transnational challenges that may require a global coordinated response.
Global governance implicitly mandates a certain level of international intervention which is contrary to the principles of sovereignty and non-intervention in each other’s affairs. In addition, this governance model would also have to address the asymmetries existing in the present structure of governance which lead to a participation deficit of developing countries in global norm creation, thereby accentuating inequalities between nations.
This new model should genuinely attempt to fulfill the mandate of Article III of the United Nations Charter which provides that there should be “international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.”
In the case of the present pandemic, while it is obvious that China is squarely to be blamed for the mayhem around the globe, the immediate requirement is that the WHO as an international organisation should be reformed as has been stated by the US, India and Australia.
The need for global healthcare governance has to be realised and the WHO should be vested with this responsibility.
For discharging this duty, the WHO should be provided with the necessary financial and human resources to address the issue of governance of healthcare around the world. The administration of the WHO should be made more broad-based and representative of global realities by increasing the participation of the global South in the organisation.
At a political level, it may be provided with similar administrative powers as are available to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) where it can direct a proper course of action instead of merely making recommendations that the countries may or may not follow.
Dilution of political borders is a reality and not just in the field of politics, finance and cyberworld but in the field of social and physical integration. The problems of countries, starting with basic healthcare, have to be addressed at a global level.
The earlier the world, both the and South, realises this, the better it would be for everyone around.
(Writer: VEER, MAYANK, NIDHI SAXENA ; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
It is clear that a successful strategy for rural India will go a long way in dealing with the pandemic. However, the solutions have to be organic and community-based for them to work. And the war should be fought on two fronts — healthcare as well as on the economic front
As we near the end of the lockdown on May 3, there are indications that the exit strategy is likely to be a staggered one as the Government tries to beat the Coronavirus from sweeping across the country. Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has indicated that the Covid-19 strategy will remain, the same: Locate, test, isolate and treat.
While it is true that our villages have not reported many cases so far, but if the virus spreads to rural India, can our public healthcare system manage to deal with it? Is there a contingency plan for such a situation?
Right now the Government seems to be banking on the Covid-19 not reaching rural India. It is hoping that the million migrant labourers who went back home to their villages soon after the nationwide lockdown began on March 25 might not be infected or vectors.
This is for two reasons, Dr Vardhan says. “Personally I feel that these migrant labourers would never have come in contact with the carriers of the disease. The Coronavirus arrived in India with international travellers and, therefore, most cases so far have been in the cities. The second is that they have already covered the two-week quarantine period. Had they been infected it would have been detected by this time,” he explains to this columnist.
Also, the rural folks have become alert and do not allow strangers into their villages. They are keeping constant vigil. Awareness about the virus and how it spreads has increased because there are 117 crore phone subscribers who get information through their mobile phones.
State officials have told village councils to prevent labourers returning from the cities from entering the village or meeting people due to the fear that they might be infected with the Coronavirus. In view of all these precautions, the Minister is confident of meeting the challenge if it reaches rural India.
“Money is not an issue. We have given Rs 4,000 crore to the States. We are supplying them test kits. We can do much more,” he assures.
However, data show that though urban residents are more at risk due to proximity to international travellers and cheek by jowl housing, the rural folk are not off the hook as they face several challenges including inadequate access to proper healthcare, low insurance penetration and a growing chronic disease burden.
With two-thirds of the population living in rural India, we need a different strategy to take care of their healthcare needs, particularly as the pandemic looms over us. As a priority, the quality of rural healthcare needs to be stepped up.
The health infrastructure data published in the National Health Profile, 2019, found that Government hospitals would run out of beds in rural India even if the virus hits 0.03 per cent of the population in the villages. The pressure of handling patients in rural India is twice as much as the national average. While for every 10,000 people in the country, there is one doctor available; in rural India one doctor is available for every 26,000 people.
There are also practical difficulties in implementing Government guidelines on health and hygiene. For instance, rural folks wonder how they can follow social distancing in a limited space? Or wash their hands often when they are in the fields or even at home because there is no running water or soap? They wonder how they will be able to afford masks when they don’t have money to buy them? Or how could they get proper healthcare in the event of an outbreak when there are not enough Government hospitals in the vicinity?
The widening urban-rural divide is also evident in the inequalities in consumption, quality of life and availability of physical and social infrastructure.
The Union Government announced a Rs 1.7 trillion financial package on March 26 for direct cash transfers and free food and the second one is to follow soon. But this barely amounts to one per cent of India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
What is needed is a strategy suited to rural India. For an inclusive economic growth, there is a need to focus on the agrarian economy. Second, the panchayats should be utilised in the fight against Covid-19 and also for economic recovery.
Realising the need for this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself addressed the gram panchayats and sought their help last week. Similarly, realising their importance, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has pragmatically vested on sarpanches the powers of District Collectors.
In Kerala, its network of local bodies and the women empowerment programme ‘Kutumbashree’ has taken the battle against the Coronavirus to the community level. Gram panchayats could be the engine to deal with the problems unique to the villages. It is clear that a successful strategy for rural India will go a long way in dealing with the pandemic. However, the solutions have to be organic and community-based for them to work. And the war should be fought on two fronts — healthcare as well as on the economic front.
(Writer: Kalyani Shankar; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
They may not have the halo but some CMs are coming up with effective systems for managing the virus spread
This is a chilling reality. Fifteen lakh international travellers arrived in India between January 18 and March 23. And the Government is trying to find all of them with respective States to gauge the extent of infectivity they have set off. There is no doubt about the whole-heartedness of efforts by the Centre in tackling the COVID-19 and attempting a national lockdown on a colossal scale, the biggest in the world, to build a culture of social distancing as the only preventive. The economic relief package and foodgrains for the poor may still not be enough but India is a huge country with several challenges and this is the time when our federal structure is being tested. And while it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi who gets the national attention, the work done by some Opposition Chief Ministers in their respective States proves that unitedly each could learn from the other and forge a united front with the Centre. In the process, we are developing innovative models of crisis management that may hold us in good stead to manage not only this wave of the virus but future pandemics as well. One such Chief Minister is Kerala’s Pinarayi Vijayan, heading a State that has not only tamed the deadly Nipah virus but confined, choked and controlled it. Kerala’s model of testing, finding, isolating and contact-tracking with a round the year follow-up surveillance is paying off results. Even before a Central package, the Vijayan Government announced a Rs 20,000 crore relief measure and is the first to give some dignity to migrant labourers, who are homeless and without food post-lockdowns, by officially designating them State guests. Not only that, having learnt hard lessons in disaster management during the floods, Kerala is also opening community kitchens and shelters for the displaced. This inclusivity is not just a tokenism or a political plank to be used at opportune moments; the Vijayan Government has always tried to integrate migrant workers, paying them three times the minimum wage in other States, providing for their children’s education and enrolling them for several State schemes. The Arvind Kejriwal Government in Delhi has eased lockdown pressures, although the city is one of the hotspots of COVID-19 in India, and created a three-layered response model of preparedness. It has allowed e-tailers, 24X7 operation of shops selling essential provisions and medicines and is converting abandoned buildings as either shelters or quarantine areas. It even has a graded action plan for the spike in cases, from 100 to 500 and upwards, and has roped in voluntary services of private doctors to stem the tide once the cases rise. The four lakh community kitchens in school premises for the poor will hopefully stem the exodus of daily wagers. The Gehlot
Government in Rajasthan has set an example in Bhilwara, the State’s epicentre of the virus, by locking it down completely before the national diktat, aggressive contact tracing and now possibly testing every citizen in clusters. Captain Amarinder Singh in Punjab, the State which sees high international arrivals, completely cut it off before any other State had.
Meanwhile, Mamata Banerjee in Bengal, true to her style, took to the streets, distributing masks and drawing circles in public markets to educate people about the norms of social distancing. She has pledged no food shortage and is preparing for the surge with makeshift medical facilities. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik may have been extremely low-key but has been one of the first to set up a network of quarantine and care centres, his post-flood management holding him in good stead. In fact, going by reports, States and Union Territories with more testing centres are reporting higher cases of incidence. In the end, this is a big test of endurance and leadership. If we pass this, then we might just go back to cooperative federalism than a competitive one. Welfarism could be shared.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
While some of the relief measures announced by the FM are just financial jugglery, the remaining items offer some concrete benefits to the poor
In his address to the nation on March 19, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the setting up of an Economic Response Task Force (ERTF) under the Union Finance Minister (FM), Nirmala Sitharaman to come up with a package of measures to alleviate the problems faced by industries, sectors, businesses and workers due to the economic disruption caused by Covid-19.
The most seriously affected sectors, such as aviation, transport, hospitality, tourism, retail, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), are looking for a host of concessions such as additional interest subvention (for instance, MSMEs are demanding three-five per cent over and above the two per cent that they are already getting), moratorium on repayment of loans and interest dues, relaxing the repayment schedules and liberalising the norms for declaring a loan a non-performing asset (NPA). At present, a loan is classified as a NPA if it is not paid within 90 days and now the demand is for increasing this to 180 days.
The industries are also seeking reduction in policy rate, the interest rate charged by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on loans given to banks, by 50 basis points and reduction in the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) to inject more liquidity into the economy and so on.
However, the worst-affected are tens of millions in the “informal” sector such as street vendors, craftsmen, construction workers, domestic workers, agricultural labourers, the self-employed and so on. They are in need of immediate financial relief and in substantial measure. What should be the relief amount per person? What will be its impact on the Budget?
India’s working population is about 40 crore. Of this, 94 per cent or 37.6 crore are in the informal sector. The national minimum wage of an informal worker is approximately Rs 175 per day or Rs 4,550 per month (26 working days) and when s/he doesn’t get to work, s/he loses this much income. For 37.6 crore workers, this comes to about Rs 1,70,000 crore per month. If the lockdown continues for three months, the loss will be Rs 5,10,000 crore. This should be the quantum of Direct Income Support (DIS). What has the FM offered?
On March 24, for the industries and businesses, Sitharaman announced reliefs which are largely “procedural.” These include extending the date for filing returns (income-tax, Goods and Services Tax, customs, excise and statutory filings under the Companies Act), reducing interest chargeable on delayed payments, exemption from penalty, increasing threshold of insolvency filing and so on. She also indicated that the financial package for affected sectors will be separately notified based on recommendations of the ERTF.
On March 26, apart from providing insurance cover worth Rs 50 lakh for doctors, nurses, paramedics and sanitation workers, she announced the PM Gareeb Kalyan Scheme (PMGKS) aimed at providing immediate assistance — in both cash and kind — to millions of poor. The scheme entails a total expenditure commitment of Rs 1,70,000 crore.
The package includes giving five kg of rice/wheat per person per month for “free” to around 80 crore people through the Public Distribution System (PDS) plus one kg of preferred and region-specific choice of pulse per household for three months (this is in addition to the five kg of rice/wheat already being given to them per month); ex-gratia of Rs 500 per month for three months to Women Jan Dhan account holders to benefit 20 crore women; release first installment of Rs 2,000 under the PM-KISAN scheme to 8.69 crore farmers in the first week of April; an ex-gratia amount of Rs 1,000 for the next three months in two instalments to three crore widows and senior citizens; free gas cylinders to 8.3 crore women Ujjawala scheme beneficiaries for three months; and an increase of Rs 20 in wage rate of workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) to benefit five crore people.
For construction workers, State Governments have been directed to use the welfare fund for building and construction labourers (it has around Rs 31,000 crore) to help people face economic disruption because of the lockdown.
Likewise, the funds available under the District Mineral Fund (DMF) can be used for testing activities, medical screening and providing healthcare to fight the pandemic.
Besides, under the Deen Dayal National Livelihood Mission (DDNLM), Women Self-Help Groups (SHGs) will get collateral-free loans up to Rs 20 lakh (up from Rs 10 lakh earlier) to benefit 630,000 SHGs.
For the organised sector, the Government will pay the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) contribution of both the employer and the employee or 24 per cent for three months. However, this is only for those establishments with up to 100 employees, 90 per cent of them earning less than Rs 15,000 per month.
Further, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) regulation will be amended so that workers can withdraw up to 75 per cent for contingency expenditure as non-refundable advance or three months of wages in advance, whichever is less. This is expected to benefit 4.8 crore workers.
Of the 10 items, payment under PM-KISAN is merely a rehash of what is already being done. The proposed relief for construction workers and healthcare from the respective funds is not amenable to any precise quantification.
The increase in loan limit for Women SHGs is not a cash transfer or grant. The 24 per cent contribution to EPF may sound attractive but is hamstrung by a rider; thus, even if the number of employees earning less than Rs 15,000 per month is 89 per cent of the total, the concerned establishment won’t be eligible. The change of EPFO regulation merely allows the worker to withdraw his own money.
The remaining items offer some concrete financial benefit. Let us attempt to arrive at a number by putting relevant pieces together.
For a woman Jan Dhan account holder, who is also the head of the household, the value of 35 kg rice (for a family of five people at five kg per person) and one kg pulse is Rs 955 (market price of rice: Rs 35 per kg and pulse Rs 80 per kg); Rs 500 ex-gratia; Rs 500 value of subsidised gas cylinder and Rs 600 increase in wage under MNREGA. All put together, the benefit comes to Rs 2,555 per month.
This is a good sum, though far below the amount required to offset the loss of income resulting from the lockdown. Besides, an overwhelming numbers of workers in the informal sector will be left out; their benefit may at best be restricted to five kg of free wheat/rice and one kg pulse (that too subject to the capability of the existing distribution network to supply these grains to the needy).
However, we should also not be oblivious of the fiscal implications of even a limited package. The nerve-shattering Covid-19 has come at a time when the Government is staring at a big shortfall in tax collection. As it is, at Rs 15,75,000 crore, the target for 2020-21 (increase of 31 per cent over the likely actual during 2019-20 at Rs 12,00,000 crore) — fixed prior to the crisis — was highly unrealistic. Post-crisis, this may look like daydreaming. With the inevitability of global recession and lack of market appetite, the target for proceeds from disinvestment of its shareholding in Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) i.e. Rs 2,10,000 crore (a major source of non-tax revenue) is clearly out of reach.
Some experts have suggested that the Government may relax the fiscal deficit (FD) target for 2020-21 by one percentage point to release about Rs 2,00,000 crore. But this can’t be viewed in isolation from the existing fiscal position. If, deferred subsidy payments (DSPs), extra-budgetary resources (EBRs) are included, already the FD should be six per cent (as against the budgeted 3.5 per cent). The steep decline in both tax and non-tax revenue (courtesy the Coronavirus) will increase it further.
On top of this, a further relaxation of one per cent to meet expenditure commitments under PMGKS will lead to a fiscal catastrophe. We may defeat the Coronavirus eventually but the vast majority of the poor will be crippled by resulting high inflation (for the first time in decades, the Centre is asking the RBI to buy its bonds which in plain words means “print new currency” and is inflationary), high interest rates, high cost of capital to industry, plummeting real wages and so on.
All this points to a dire need for expediting reforms in all crucial areas viz. food, fertilisers, fuel, power, irrigation, credit, taxation, banking and PSUs so as to result in a “sustainable” reduction in spending and achieve the desired buoyancy in tax revenue. But, for now, it seems all reforms have been put in the deep freezer.
(Writer: Uttam Gupta; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
In times when the world is facing an existential crisis, the Western media must look closer home than build false narratives about India and its handling of the Corona pandemic
In an interview to German television Deutsche Welle (DW) on April 17, writer-activist Arundhati Roy accused the Government of India “of exploiting the Coronavirus outbreak to inflame tensions between the Hindus and the Muslims”, adding dramatically, “the situation is approaching genocidal.” Given their experience with a democratically-elected leader in 1933, one expected the Germans to show better sense in their reportage and choice of guests. Still, we remain grateful for the submarine ride that helped Netaji get to Japan.
Roy’s nauseating statements may please a certain audience but with no evidence to even tangentially support her wild allegations, DW has tarnished its journalistic standards by inviting her bilge against India at such a sensitive time. In reality, several South Asian nations hold the Tablighi Jamaat responsible for the rise of Coronavirus hotspots within their borders. Sensible Muslims are embarrassed by the Nizamuddin event, which led to the extension of the national lockdown; hopefully, it will end on May 3.
Recent weeks have also seen reports of a temple yatra and one high-profile wedding where none of the guests wore masks. In South Korea, a little known church emerged as a hotspot linked to nearly 5,200 confirmed cases in February. Singapore banned the local activities of this sect. Further, a high-profile election guru was recently smuggled from Delhi to an Opposition-ruled State in a transport plane. As he was visiting a State regarded as a Coronavirus hotspot, one expected the authorities to enforce the 14-day quarantine at the airport, on his return. Hopefully, he will not be allowed to smuggle himself back.
To return to the Tablighi Jamaat, around 250,000 people attended a five-day Ijtema in Raiwind, Lahore, Pakistan, on March 10. Authorities say over 2,258 people, who attended the event, were found positive for Coronavirus. On April 16, Maulana Suhaib Rumi, 69, head of the sect’s Faisalabad branch, who attended the Raiwind Ijtema, died of Coronavirus; five members of his family were also infected. Pakistan’s Science and Technology Minister Fawad Chaudhry held the “stubbornness of the clergy” responsible for the spread of the contagion. Pakistan’s first set of cases came with Shia pilgrims returning from Iran, one of the worst-affected nations, but the problem was then less known.
In Malaysia, nearly 16,000 Tablighis attended a meeting at Jamek Mosque, Sri Petaling, Kuala Lumpur (February 27-March 1) and spread the disease in Southeast Asia. Only half the Malaysian participants reported for testing, despite requests from the authorities. The guests included 1,500 foreigners from Brunei, Thailand, Canada, Nigeria, India, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, China and South Korea. The authorities in Brunei (50 cases), Singapore (5), Cambodia (13) and Thailand (2) have confirmed the link between the meeting and the disease. One Filipino man, who attended the event and was being probed for suspected Coronavirus infection, died in the city of Marawi.
The India-baiting New York Times published an article, In India, Coronavirus Fans Religious Hatred, on April 12 and said that the Delhi Government had banned meetings of more than 50 people on March 16, but on March 19, Maulana Saad Khandalvi, the head of the Tablighi Jamaat, announced that Coronavirus was “god’s punishment” and not to fear it. Days after the nationwide lockdown began on March 24, after two deaths at the Markaz, doctors found nearly 1,300 people at the centre without masks or protective gear. By then, hundreds had moved and spread the virus to many States, including the Andaman Islands. Quick action by the authorities intercepted the Malaysian guests at the airport before they could leave the country.
The Ijtema undeniably led to a spurt in India’s Coronavirus cases. Medical staff dealing with patients and quarantine cases also suffered very difficult situations, even as they risked their lives to save lives. In a related development, the Union Home Ministry has asked State Governments to help trace Rohingya migrants from different States, who attended the Ijtema in Delhi (March 25) as they might have contracted the Coronavirus. It appears that the incubation period of the virus varies and sometimes takes longer than the projected two weeks to manifest. The Delhi Police has reportedly charged Saad with culpable homicide, but he is untraceable. Worse, it appears that a meeting was also held in Mewat (Haryana).
For foreigners, to find a mote in the Indian eye and not look at the beam in their own, has given pain to a nation that has always prided itself for adhering to the most exacting and challenging civilisational values. Bigotry does not come naturally to Indians; Western journalists should look closer home.
If I may show the mirror, George Packer writes, “When the virus came here, it found a country with serious underlying conditions and it exploited them ruthlessly. Chronic ills — a corrupt political class, a sclerotic bureaucracy, a heartless economy and a divided and distracted public — had gone untreated for years…. It took the scale and intimacy of a pandemic to expose their severity — to shock Americans with the recognition that we are in the high-risk category.” (We Are Living In A Failed State, The Atlantic, June 2020 issue)
The analysis of American preparedness to cope with the crisis is crisp: “When test kits, masks, gowns and ventilators were found to be in desperately short supply, Governors pleaded for them from the White House, which stalled, then called on private enterprise, which couldn’t deliver. States and cities were forced into bidding wars that left them prey to price gouging and corporate profiteering. Civilians took out their sewing machines to try to keep ill-equipped hospital workers healthy and their patients alive. Russia, Taiwan, and the United Nations sent humanitarian aid to the world’s richest power — a beggar nation in utter chaos.”
In India, First Lady Savita Kovind and thousands of women across the country are stitching masks to ensure that every citizen has at least one. In America: “A few Senators and corporate executives acted quickly — not to prevent the coming disaster but to profit from it.”
Above all, the virus, George Packer laments, exposed the inequality rampant in America: The wealthy and connected managed to get tested, though most had no symptoms, while “ordinary people with fevers and chills had to wait in long and possibly infectious lines, only to be turned away because they weren’t actually suffocating.” Unsurprisingly, most victims were poor, Black and Brown.
(Writer: Sandhya Jain; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
As the nation stares at a prolonged lockdown given the fluid pandemic, economic revival specifics must be spelt out
There seems to be no unanimity over lifting the national lockdown and we may not be getting a single date applicable for the whole nation. With hotspots and red zones emerging on the virus map, containment still a massive challenge with unanticipated spikes and testing not enough with asymptomatic carriers moving around, it is difficult for affected State Governments and the Centre to reach a common meeting ground. Truth be told, this, in the end, cannot be a one-size-fits-all formula till a vaccine is found and the Centre has no option but to go by the State Governments’ recommendations and concerns, particularly those badly affected. So no big announcement came out after the Prime Minister’s teleconference with Chief Ministers on COVID-19 management except that the colour-coded zoning would continue and green dots would be opened up in a staggered manner so that economic activity could resume. While most Chief Ministers wanted resumption of economic activity to avoid a livelihood crisis, some Chief Ministers, like those of Odisha, Meghalaya and Goa, wanted an extended lockdown till May end and would like State borders sealed than risk a cross-flow of labour and import the virus. To sum it up, green zones would be allowed to open up economic activities with caveats and compliances while the risky zones would automatically go into the third phase of the lockdown. No inter-State travel, be it by air, train or road, of any kind except those specified already. Of course, one expected Prime Minister Narendra Modi to declare some sort of stimulus package, something that the entire nation demands, but nothing specific came out. Again. Except, of course, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) did announce a Rs 50,000 crore bailout for mutual funds. But apart from assuring broadly that the economy would do fine, Chief Ministers got no concrete guarantee. Most of them have been demanding that at least the GST dues be released to them. Perhaps, Modi doesn’t want to sound grandiloquent or be held to his statements in these fluid and fickle times and promise something that may be unattainable. Perhaps, his economic advisers are against the giveaways leading to runaway expectations of handouts. But businesses are expecting some strong signal, for example higher working capital limits while small and medium scale enterprises are looking for some enablers to ride out the crisis and meet statutory dues.
There may be piecemeal efforts, yes, but the nation expects the Prime Minister to reassure people that their savings are not at risk or that there were ways of clambering out of the trough. They know about social distancing and don’t need the Prime Minister to tell them about that in his speeches. He needs to share revival efforts instead with his people so that there is no uncertainty on the ground. Even now, despite easing of lockdown, only 16 to 17 per cent of the truck business is operational, plagued as it is by desertions of migrants and procedural hurdles in getting clearances in different States. Besides, every industry and sector has its own specific problem and demand that need to be at least listened to or acknowledged. Except Union Minister of Road Transport, Highways and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) Nitin Gadkari, who has been talking to Chief Ministers regarding infrastructure projects in their States, there has been no discernible outreach by any other Minister. Of course, there has been a bureaucratic reshuffle over the weekend, one that’s clearly geared towards economic recovery. The appointments of Tarun Bajaj and AK Sharma, both Modi aides who have been with the PMO, mean business. The former has been made the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) Secretary in the Finance Ministry while the latter will take charge as Secretary, MSMEs. While we reorient ourselves towards building self-sufficiencies in manufacturing and import substitution in the long run, at this stage the small and medium industries can keep the wheels going at the level of local economies and collectively grease the bigger wheels of producers. Already, experts have predicted that 25-30 per cent MSME units many not survive the pandemic. Gadkari has said that the Government will set up a Rs 1 lakh crore fund to repay outstanding dues owed by the Central and State Government undertakings to them. But even the big industries need some encouragement. And that better come fast and soon. All major leaders of the world have done so and on a day we were declared the third highest military spender, after the US and China, we wished there was some news to alleviate the pains of what looks like a prolonged lockdown.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
For those who will survive the Covid-19 era, it will be another chance to look at the fundamentals of a civilised life
One of the biggest industries currently is forecasting the future of a post-Coronavirus world. Various themes are being touted — “Revival to survival”, “Covid-19: A learning opportunity for higher education”, “Coping with uncertainty” and many more. The online world has seldom been so vibrant. Everyone has something to say. Right from psychiatrists, public opinion leaders, journalists, statisticians, industrial lobbyists and of course public speakers. The world is teeming with futurologists, forecasters and many more breeds yet to be named. The danger of anyone being proved wrong is very little because the future is not here yet.
However, one thing is certain, the passing away of the Coronavirus is not in doubt. One doesn’t have to be blessed with psychic powers to realise that like everything else “this too shall pass.”
The question therefore is not, if this shall pass, the question is when? And at what cost? It is the uncertainty of it all that is gripping, worrying and more. Since a large number of the vectors are asymptomatic and possible solutions are still in the works, one doesn’t know where it will strike, who it will strike and indeed when. As one prepares to go to the press, much is being made of the “silent carriers.” Anyone can be a vector, as the act of living requires human interaction. Some news channels will have us believe that wholesale vegetable markets are one of the major centres of virus exchange. Life cannot go on without vegetables, certainly not for as long a period as the present lockdown seems to be headed for. The moment vegetables are washed (an obvious wash is through food grade hydrogen peroxide), somebody promptly reminds us of the ill-effects of chemicals. And there another anxiety race starts.
Summer is almost upon us. Some might even argue that it has already arrived. In certain segments, a debate has been generated over the use of air conditioners. Apparently, the Central Public Works Department has even developed guidelines regarding the proper use of air conditioning and ventilation. It has thoughts on “how to operate air conditioning and ventilation systems to control the spread of the Coronavirus in residences, work spaces and healthcare facilities.” Social media is full of forwards on how a family in China got infected by the virus due to the use of air conditioners. Notwithstanding this, air conditioner servicing firms are swamped by calls as people want their cooling systems in working condition. In some residences/offices air conditioners are already being used. However, this is not the space to resolve these dilemmas over the use of air conditioners, visits to wholesale vegetable markets and so on. But it is safe to say that there is no written record available of such uncertainty and anxiety affecting almost every part of the globe in the past. Even the animal kingdom has not been spared and there have been reports coming in of even felines, big cats in zoos and the ubiquitous alley kind, being affected by the Coronavirus.
Clearly, it is also a field day for fake news. This, again, may not be the best place for such a discussion and moreover, many news channels are already doing their bit to spread/dispel it. Be that as it may, a few things are gradually taking shape. As and when Covid-19 passes away, there will be an opportunity to rebuild the world. The contours of that world are currently confined to populist images of clear river waters, blue skies and pollution-free air (but the powers that be are recommending masks even at home going forward). The “power” of the prescription is rooted in the authority of the signatory. Some find it confusing but that would only be if they are looking for consistent “reason.” It is important to realise that there are many things in life which happen without an obvious “reason”, the way we understand the word.
Yet, given the prevailing environment, one would like to hazard a guess towards certain directions of growth in the near future. For one, the areas of dominance in the world of science will undergo some recalibration. The world of information technology will have strong competition from the field of pharmacology. In the coming few years, vaccines and medical devices will draw high talent. The nature of shipping itself may undergo a change. A possible reduction in ship-port calls may emerge. Warehousing as a business may experience a boom. Capacities of shipping through land, sea or air may need a serious review. Some of this may happen; some of this may get refracted.
As of now, certain things stare us in the face. Refineries are slowing down; there is a worldwide oil production cut. In certain cases, prices are down by nearly 90 per cent. Almost overnight, the thirst for oil has vanished as the world stays locked down.
Capital may not necessarily flow to large “sizes of canvas” but to the less-battered economies. For those who will survive the Covid-19 era, (and clearly many will), it will be another chance to look at the fundamentals of civilised life again. Till then patience cannot be an overrated virtue.
(Writer: Vinayshil Gautam; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
Labourers don’t have bank accounts and are out of the welfare arc. As they migrate, the flu could swamp rural India
State borders now present a picture of reverse human migration as thousands of daily wage earners, casual labourers and vendors, who do not have a bank account or even money to save, trudge back to their home States despite a lockdown. With no buses, trucks or trains, they have decided to surrender to destiny and return to their villages on foot. For even without a day’s work, they would not be able to get food for their families or rent the hovel they live in at slum clusters. Food shortages and uncontrolled hoarding have meant that they have not been able to get basic rations over the last two days, leading to widespread panic. It is a hard choice between starvation and the flu. In the absence of soup kitchens or shelters, the vast numbers of India’s unorganised labour market won’t even be able to avail the economic relief measures announced by the Government. And they are going back home, thinking they will live off the land with whatever subsistence farming can give them. There will be a roof over their heads where they do not have to pay rent. There’s no agricultural activity either, signalling a low output of food crops that may foist another problem on the nation later. This is a humanitarian crisis like no other. Let us not forget migrant returnees may have already unwittingly carried Coronavirus into India’s vast rural swathes, which are unaware, unprepared and under-equipped to deal with the criticality of a health emergency of this scale. And considering they are travelling in clusters, all of them could be potentially infected by the time they reach from carriers among them. Then the whole purpose of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 21-day lockdown, to break the transmission cycle of the virus, would get defeated. Worst, rural India could be swamped. Assuming these “non-banked” people even avail of the Pradhan Mantri Gareeb Kalyan Anna Yojana and get 5 kg per person rice/wheat each month for the next three months in addition to 5 kg of rice/wheat that they already get, they would rather use these benefits at their village than be homeless and helpless in cities. This unprecedented flight of migrant workers out of our cities, be it Rajasthan or Telangana, poses a new challenge in our fight against the virus. Containing and settling them at shelters in a specified location pose the biggest challenge. Frankly, India has not had time to prepare for the human dimension of the virus or the lockdown. The WHO did lead it up the garden path, not pressing the panic buttons early on. There was a denial about the inevitability of community explosion, given the density of our population and the failure of Indians to take to social distancing, isolation and quarantining protocols seriously. Now experts are saying the lockdown would have been effective had it been enforced a week or two before and that we are still two steps behind the virus.
According to reports, over 2,000 daily wage workers in Ahmedabad took to their feet and other means of transport for their homes back in Rajasthan. Thousands of wagers are walking long distances, even to the extent of 100 and 300 km, and often on empty stomach to reach their villages. According to the Economic Survey of 2018-19, over 90 per cent of our total workforce is “informal.” The worrying part is that the NITI Aayog estimates show that India’s informal sector employees are approximately 85 per cent of all workers. The Economic Survey of 2016-2017 had indicated an annual flow of close to nine million migrants among States between 2011 and 2016. Internationally, too, migrants are posing newer challenges to managing the epidemic. Borders throughout the Middle East tend to be porous with political refugees, economic migrants and others often travelling along informal routes. It is very difficult under such circumstances to monitor who is entering and leaving what country. Also, these people cannot access public healthcare. This has caused much of the spread in nations around Iran, too. Now imagine that with our States. We are quite precariously perched but trying to flatten the curve would mean not just lockdowns or an economic package but aggressive testing, isolation and surveillance. Where are these facilities in rural India? If we are to ride this out and look ahead, there can be no two ways about rearranging a nation’s health priorities. As the PM said, Jaan hai to Jahaan hai. Delhi’s Central vista makeover, at Rs 20,000 crore, can wait!
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
While the spread of Coronavirus must prod human beings to make behavioural changes, China, too, must realise that the time is not for aggressiveness but introspection
More than 2,500 years ago, Gautam Buddha preached the four noble truths. Dukh (suffering) was central to all of his teachings but he also found a path that led to the end of dukh. COVID-19, which emanated from the Chinese city of Wuhan last year, has bought immense dukh to the human species. The pain may not be over anytime soon. While the outbreak of the disease has been a tragedy for many of us on planet earth, it has also brought sukh (happiness) to the environment — the rivers, flora, fauna …and even some human beings. Here, a pertinent question arises: Will we, the humans, learn something from the blow or will everything resume as before?
Human confinement has forced many of us to spend quality time with our dear and near ones. This was something that was forgotten for years. Planetary developments of the last few weeks have strangely brought both sukh and dukh; though a post-confinement era may bring hard times for hundreds and millions of people. But at present, WhatsApp groups and software like Zoom have become popular (in the latter’s case, India took the right decision to ban its use in Government offices when it was found that some of the traffic was discretely transiting via China).
I personally joined one of these groups with my French family with whom I hardly communicated in normal times. In the course of an exchange, a six-year-old nephew was asked if the confinement was not too hard for him; he took no time to answer, “I would like it to last 1,000 years.”
For the first time in his life (with the exception of holidays), he had both his parents with him from morning till evening. Of course, he had to do some homework but his teacher was his own mom. What a delight even to do homework! And his father was here, too, to play, watch cartoon with him and help put on a disguise. He will certainly remember the “good days” of the confinement all his life. This does not mean that there is no hardship around and that to remain stuck in a small flat is pure sukh. It is here that we must realise why this tragedy is so special. It has struck the human species deeply, infecting so far more than two and half million people and killing nearly two lakh individuals. Can humans realise that we are, perhaps, the most fragile (and the most foolish) species on planet earth?
Comparatively, many other species are doing well, not only the wildlife, which were once sold on the wet market in Wuhan and who may now survive, but also all kinds of animals seen in viral videos exploring the great empty cities of the humans. Many rivers are doing well, too. Some scientists have noted that the water quality of river Ganga has gone through such a change that in some cases, it is fit for drinking. It was reported that the water of this holy river had become good for achaman (ritual sipping) in Haridwar. In both Haridwar and Rishikesh, water quality has seen tremendous improvements as industries remain closed, people are confined to their homes and there are no tourists. The main reason for this is a 500 per cent decrease in total dissolved solids (TDS), industrial effluents, sewage from dharamshalas, hotels and lodges. We had conveniently forgotten that religious tourism pollutes, too.
The South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers & People, an NGO doing remarkable work on the environment, suggested that this may be the way forward for pollution control mechanisms in the country. To do so, studies will have to be undertaken in a number of States, including Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Maharashtra and Karnataka, among others. The rivers must include the Sutlej, Buddha Nullah, Cauvery, Ulhas, Waldhuni, besides the Ganga and the Yamuna.
Another question that comes to one’s mind, again and again, is: When the virus is dead and gone, will the human species start destroying the planet again? Will we be able to analyse the tragedy and identify the cause of dukh and find the way to a greater sukh, just like the Buddha did more than two millennia ago?
Another small improvement COVID-19 has brought is that the constant nasty political fights between the majority Government and the Opposition have somehow got subdued (this is valid for all nations). Instead of playing a constructive role to build the nation, the Opposition usually plays a shooting game, arguing black when the Government says white and vice versa. On its part, the Government is more often than not interested in the Opposition as it has the mandate to govern for the next few years. Nevertheless, the virus seems to have brought a relative truce among our leaders and this is a positive development. Will there be a day when the only objective of our political leaders will be to ensure the well-being of the citizens, more particularly the less privileged sections?
Coronavirus seems to be an atheist, too. Several religious congregations thought their respective gods or messiahs were protecting them but this was not the case — whether in Nizamuddin, which sent the virus spreading throughout the country, or in Mulhouse, where a religious congregation has been the main hotspot in France, or some Jewish temples in Israel where the priests thought that they were invincible.
Many other cases could be cited like a Christian preacher in Louisiana, the US, defying rightly worried authorities or those in Pakistan, who held a gathering of nearly a quarter of a million in late February, despite warnings of coronavirus; they all became “super-spreaders.” Does this mean that the COVID-19 does not like religious extremism or exclusivism? Nobody can answer this question today but the fact remains that nobody has been spared. The ultimate question is: Will humans be able to become more human? The time has, perhaps, come for us to think of our past deeds. This is also vital for the future of the planet.
Meanwhile, since January, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has engaged in a major propaganda campaign. It is doing everything it can to possibly cover up how Coronavirus became a global pandemic. The CCP Central Propaganda Department is aggressively attempting to avoid getting the blame for what it has done. But a backlash has already started. Julian Reichel, the editor of the popular German Bild magazine, wrote an open letter to President Xi Jinping saying, “China is known as a surveillance State that infected the world with a deadly disease. That is your political legacy.” China has to realise that the time is not for aggressiveness but for introspection. Today, the virus has raised the question of survival of our peculiar species.
(Writer: Claude Arpi; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
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