The second phase of the vaccination drive began with the PM and his ministerial colleagues taking the jab
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi leading the way, a battery of eminent political leaders on Monday took the anti-COVID shot as the country saw the launch of the second phase of vaccination drive and reports of a successful start to the campaign coming in from across India. Prominent among those who took the first dose on the first day of the second phase were Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu, Union Ministers Amit Shah, Jitendra Singh, S Jaishankar, Som Prakash, Rajasthan Governor Kalraj Mishra, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and NCP president Sharad Pawar. Kickstarting the second phase of the immunisation programme, the Prime Minister received his first dose of Covaxin at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi. In a light vein and seeking to put them at ease, the Prime Minister asked the nurses administering him the vaccine whether they planned to use “some special thick needle” as politicians are known to be “very thick-skinned”. People above 60 years of age and those above 45 with comorbidities are eligible to get the jabs in this phase. The second phase of the vaccination drive will cover 10 crore people across the country. So far, 1.45 core people in two priority groups, healthcare and frontline workers, have received the shots of Covishield and Covaxin in the first phase.
The second phase of vaccination comes at a time when India’s active COVID cases are largely under control, but eight States — Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Jammu & Kashmir and Madhya Pradesh — have been a cause of concern, reporting an upswing in daily cases in the last two weeks. India’s COVID-19 tally rose above the 11 million-mark on Monday as the country logged in 15,510 new cases in a span of 24 hours. A total of 106 fatalities were reported on Sunday, taking the death toll to over 1.57 lakh. The number of active cases currently stands at 1,68,627, a level last seen at the end of January and pointing to the re-emergence of the virus after a period of containment of the COVID outbreak. After months of staying indoors and strictly practising social distancing and hygiene norms, the number of cases had finally come under control but suddenly the pandemic outbreak has spiralled out of hand. Perhaps, the eagerness to get back into action or the reports of a declining caseload are offering a false sense of security and pushing an increasing number of Indians into vulnerability, which shouldn’t be the case. If we let down our guard now, India with its population may find it nigh impossible to break free from the clutches of this virus.
It is a temporary move to tide over the crises Pakistan is facing. The moment its rulers find some relief, the agreement will turn into a mere piece of paper
One mistake Indians must not make is to read Pakistan through Indian eyes. Normally, anything that leads to peace should be welcome. Similarly, we should welcome the fact that Pakistan has agreed to cessation of the ongoing hostilities with us and honour the ceasefire pact of 2003.
Yet, one must interject a note of caution here. This is because quite a few Indians, including expert observers, have interpreted the venom from Islamabad on Kashmir for years as revenge for India dismembering their country in 1971. In actual fact, as soon as the anger of the defeat was forgotten, the Pakistanis were relieved that the “dark short people” — as the Bengalis are contemptuously referred to by Pakistanis — who were a majority of their population, were finally gotten rid of.
Poet Mohammad Iqbal, who was also a leading light of the Muslim League, as its president had in 1930 at Prayagraj (then Allahabad) proposed a separate Muslim homeland which comprised only the north western provinces. He made no mention of Bengal or any part thereof. The larger Pakistan was for MA Jinnah’s glorification; he began by dreaming of six provinces, four in the west and two in the east, including Assam. Through his League colleague who was the Premier of Assam for several years after 1939, Mohd Saad Ali, he had nearly succeeded in recording that the adivasis were not Hindu but animists. This was to bring down the Hindu percentage of population and draw Assam into Pakistan when the moment of decision came. When Jinnah could not get Assam, except the district of Sylhet, Bengal and Punjab were divided by Sir Cyril Radcliffe, the lawyer dispatched by London. Jinnah was sorely disappointed at getting what he called “a moth-eaten Pakistan”.
Here, it has to be iterated that Jinnah did not represent the ultimate choice of any Pakistani except the Gujarati-speaking businessmen like the Khojas and Memons who wanted to get rich quickly by avoiding competition against Indian business communities and crossing over to the new State, where they would have to compete only against the Punjabi and Sindhi farmers. For the rest, Jinnah pleaded brilliantly for those Muslims who wanted or half-wished a separate homeland. This was Jinnah’s role in actuality; his fee was his place in history’s hall of fame. Fortunately for him, he died within 13 months of Independence. The word mohajir, a term for Muslims from Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar migrating to Pakistan, came into circulation soon thereafter. But mohajirs soon found themselves not only unwelcome but also the target of ethnic hostility in the newly carved out Muslim homeland. Jinnah’s deputy Liaquat Ali Khan, from UP, was assassinated a mere four years after Pakistan had been carved out.
What prevails in Pakistan now is the will of the West Punjabis who are two-thirds of the country’s population. Their need for Kashmir has been to keep the country together and paper over their dominance of everything, which is now a bone of contention. Plus, they portray India as a great threat to the survival of Pakistan and thus justify the indispensability of the Army as the country’s guardian.
If one looks at the latest ceasefire agreement, one would conclude that for Islamabad, it is a temporary move to hopefully tide over the crises the country is facing. The moment Pakistan’s rulers are able to find some way of relief for these crises, the current agreement will turn into a mere piece of paper. One reason for Pakistan’s softening could be that its rulers realise that China has overplayed its hand, whether with India, Taiwan or the South China Sea, and that the US has reacted strongly, though so far only in words. Otherwise, there is no explanation for Beijing to kick off a confrontation in Ladakh during the winter. It could have waited until after the spring to exercise its options which were three: To try and grab some strategically useful land points, to ease off by extracting some other concessions or by continuing to harass the Indian forces by creating local points that would pose a threat. Similarly, Islamabad wants to cool off vis-à-vis New Delhi until China warms up again after, say, arriving at some settlement with the US. If not, the rulers would wait for circumstances to change; for a true momin, his faith in Allah the Merciful is infinite. We must not compare it with the mind of a thinking or reticent Hindu.
Another possibility might be that Pakistan’s real ruler, General Bajwa, wants to ease India’s pressure on his eastern Indian front and use it to settle his scores with Baluchistan, like General Tikka had tried to do in East Pakistan in 1971. Bajwa may have been advised that the Baloch province is so rich in resources that it could greatly help in solving Pakistan’s economic problems. But to exploit these resources would take time, peace and complete control. I concede that this possibility may sound too farfetched, but unless Islamabad takes some drastic steps, how can it keep the economic wheels of Pakistan rolling? If it depends on Chinese loans, Pakistan could become a Beijing protectorate inch by inch, as one has already begun to see with the China Pakistan Economic Corridor coming into play.
(The writer is a well-known columnist and an author. The views expressed are personal.)
India has an extremely low rainwater harvesting percentage, varying from three-six per cent of the annual rainfall. Hence, watershed management is imperative
The farmers’ protest reflects their approach towards securing their future, and soon there would be a solution to that. But there still looms a larger crisis for India and its people, including the farmers. One of the most fertile lands on Earth today stands as the most water challenged nations in the world. India has the highest number of people in the world without access to safe water. Over 80 million people — a majority from impoverished communities — living on less than $4 a day, are forced to collect dirty water from open ponds and rivers or spend most of what they earn buying water from tankers.
A report by the Niti Aayog in 2018 revealed that 75 per cent of households do not have drinking water on the premises; 84 per cent of rural households do not have piped water access; 70 per cent of the water is contaminated and wastewater treatment remains stuck at the national average of over 33 per cent, leading to the high burden of waterborne diseases.
More than 600 million people in India face high to extreme water stress and 21 cities, including New Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai, will run out of groundwater soon, affecting 100 million people. Critical groundwater resources, which account for 40 per cent of our water supply, are being exploited at unsustainable rates. India is already plagued with groundwater contaminated with iron, nitrate, chlorine, along with the predominant arsenic and fluoride, both posing human health risks.
A study published by Duke University in 2018 found uranium contamination in aquifer- drawn groundwater in 16 Indian States.Water Index scores vary widely, but most States have achieved a score below 50 per cent and could significantly improve their water resource management practices.
Because of this, food security is at a risk as the low performers on the Water Index are home to over 50 per cent of the country’s population and its agricultural baskets. The low performers, worryingly, comprise the populous northern States of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Haryana and others, and are home to over 600 million people. Given the combination of rapidly declining groundwater levels and limited policy action this is also likely to be a significant food security risk for the country going forward.
Critical groundwater resources, which account for 40 per cent of our water supply, are being depleted at unsustainable rates. Droughts are becoming more frequent, creating severe problems for India’s rain-dependent farmers (over 53 per cent of agriculture is rainfed). When water is available, it is likely to be contaminated, resulting in nearly 2,00,000 deaths each year. Interstate disagreements are on the rise, with seven major disputes currently raging, pointing to the fact that limited frameworks and institutions are in place for national water governance.
By 2030, the country’s water demand is projected to be twice than the available supply, implying severe water scarcity for hundreds of millions of people and an eventual over six per cent loss in the country’s GDP. As per the report of the National Commission for Integrated Water Resource Development of MoWR, water requirement by 2050 in a high use scenario is likely to be a milder 1,180 BCM, whereas the present-day availability is 695 BCM.
The total availability of water possible in country is still lower than this projected demand, at 1,137 BCM. Thus, there is an imminent need to deepen our understanding of water resources and usage and put in place interventions that make water use efficient and sustainable. Israel is the world leader in water governance. And India has partnered with them to share methods and technology. There is a need for more such partnerships, knowledge transfer but more than that, it is awareness that is needed by common users about the impending water crisis.
With nearly 70 per cent of the water being contaminated, India ranks 120 out of 122 countries on the water quality index. Policymakers face a difficult situation because there is not enough data available on how households and industries use and manage water.
There is an urgent need to deepen understanding of our water resources and usage and put in place interventions that make water use efficient and sustainable. Consumers and industries need to look at the 4Rs with renewed rigour. “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Recharge.” India has an extremely low rainwater harvesting percentage, varying from three-six per cent of annual rainfall. Large-scale watershed management is imperative for holistic management of ecosystems. Coupled with stronger implementation policies and regulations, an ecosystem management approach will bring in adoption of newer conservation technologies.
The agriculture sector will evolve further to improve irrigation and water use efficiency. All this is not possible without investment in education and awareness. Community governance and partnerships, water pricing a strong wastewater recycling ecosystem and increasing rainwater, stormwater harvesting will make people realise the importance of every drop of water and promote sustainable use.
The writer is a conservationist, wildlife photographer, documentary film-maker and sustainability professional. The views expressed are personal.
Free access to adult learning through online mode backed by extensive usage of ICT has been emphasized
American industrialist Henry Ford famously said: “Anyone who stops learning is old - whether this happens at 20 or at 80. Anyone who keeps on learning not only remains young but becomes constantly more valuable - regardless of physical capacity.” This is true even today, particularly for illiterate adults. Adult Education (AE) extends schooling options to those who are 15 years of age or above and have missed the opportunity of formal tutoring earlier but now want to pursue education. Though the literacy rate in India has increased from 12 per cent in 1947 to 73 per cent in 2011, however, adult illiteracy is still a challenge for the Government because the absolute number of illiterates in India was 25.76 crore, the largest in the world, as per the 2011 census. Successive Central governments took major initiatives to improve the adult literacy rate in the country. For instance, under the National Education Policy (NEP), 1986, the National Literacy Mission Authority (NLMA) was founded to impart functional literacy to non-literates in the age group of 15-35 years in a time-bound manner. Subsequently, the Saakshar Bharat Programme continued till March 2018.
A major paradigm shift in the programme could help in imparting functional literacy to 7.63 crore non-literates, including 5.38 crore women, with four broader objectives namely: Basic literacy and numeracy, basic education, vocational education and continuing education. In this programme, the Government introduced new components of literacy and under the financial literacy component, one crore bank accounts of adult illiterates or neo-literates were opened under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana. With regard to legal literacy, a new curriculum was designed and developed for neo-literates to create awareness of their rights and duties. These components have been included in the critical life section of AE and the lifelong learning chapter of the NEP, 2020. The new curriculum will be developed by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and includes five components: Foundational literacy and numeracy; critical life skills (including financial literacy, digital literacy, commercial skills, healthcare and awareness, child care and education, and family welfare); vocational skills development; basic education and continuing education (including holistic adult education courses in arts, science, technology, culture, sports, recreation and more advanced material on critical life skills).
The NEP-2020 recommends a strong and innovative Government initiative for AE to facilitate community involvement and the smooth and beneficial integration of technology to expedite the aim of achieving 100 per cent literacy. These resources are a must to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.6 of the United Nations. Giving impetus to adult literacy, the Union Budget 2021-22, states that “to enable increased access of resources, online modules covering the entire gamut of adult education will be introduced.” Hence, for the improvement of the AE programme, free access to adult learning in States and Union Territories (UTs) through online mode backed by extensive usage of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has been emphasised. An online teaching and learning system will be developed in which a learner may register with essential information like name, date of birth, gender, Aadhaar number (not mandatory), mobile number and so on and attend the class through online mode by using a mobile or any Common Service Centre (CSC) or digital booth or cybercafé. At the national level the NCERT, NIOS, National Informatics Centre and the DAE will facilitate ICT support in designing and developing central modules, portal, apps, while States and UTs may explore partnerships with stakeholders for a vibrant adult education programme. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Mass illiteracy is India’s sin and shame and must be liquidated.”
(The writer is Joint Secretary, Ministry of Education. The views expressed are personal.)
The people living in hilly regions and the country at large demand that the Govt adopt a pro-people and pro-nature development model instead of a pro-corporate one
The recent havoc in the Chamoli district of Uttarakhand — where a large part of the Nanda Devi glacier fell into the Alaknanda stream near Joshimath and caused severe flooding that resulted in the hydropower projects of Rishi Ganga and NTPC Tapovan Vishnugad plus many buildings being destroyed and scores of people being killed — has raised the pertinent question: Is this development or the destruction of the environment and people? The Chamoli incident has brought back the traumatic memories of the June 2013 tragedy when the Mandakini river was suddenly flooded after a cloudburst and the flow of water killed more than 5,000 people and left millions stranded in floodwater for days. The fact remains that though Uttarakhand is blessed with natural beauty and invaluable resources such as dense forests, rivers and mountains, it has a very fragile ecosystem. Hence, the State is prone to natural disasters. An earthquake of the magnitude 6.8 on the Richter scale hit the district of Uttarkashi in 1991, killing hundreds of people and destroying thousands of houses. Another earthquake in 1999 in Chamoli killed hundreds, too. The entire Malpa village of Pithoragarh was devastated by a massive landslide in 1999 and 250 people lost their lives.
Though earthquakes, cloudbursts, landslides, massive avalanches and other natural disasters have been a part of natural processes in Uttarakhand for centuries, the increase in their frequency and depth of intensity is due to human activities. The natives of Uttarakhand are acutely aware and have widespread knowledge about the fragility and eco-sensitivity of their environment. For centuries they have lived in harmony with the environment, but now, this stability is being threatened by indiscriminate development and flagrant violation of environmental rules. They have been trying to save their State for a long time.
As early as June 1950, Mira Behn, an environmental activist of Garhwal, published an article titled ‘Something is wrong in the Himalayas’ documenting that the flash floods in Uttarakhand are bound to wreak havoc as the sensitivity of the environment is being overlooked during the economic development process. Later, she also wrote to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on the issue. It is pertinent to note that the site of the recent mishap is the cradle of the Chipko Movement that was initiated to save trees from commercial lumber firms. The first protest occurred near the village of Mandal in the upper Alaknanda valley in April 1973. Alas, governments past and present have neither listened to the cries of locals and environmental activists nor learnt any lessons from the tragedy of 2013. Still, more than 50 hydroelectric projects are underway on the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi rivers, even though a committee of experts warned that such projects were a threat to the State and its frail ecology.
In fact, Uma Bharti, a senior BJP leader and former Water Resources Minister, in her time had requested the Centre not to build power projects on the Ganga river and its major tributaries since the Himalayas are a fragile area. Following the recent catastrophe in Uttarakhand, the Government needs to seriously reconsider its stance on building hydroelectric dams in the region. It should no longer ignore the advice and warnings of experts. Magsaysay Award winner Chandi Prasad said that he had written a letter to the then Environment Minister in 2010 warning about the adverse effects of hydropower project on Rishi Ganga. His worst fears were realised in 2021. He claimed that if his warning had been heeded in 2010, the catastrophe would have been prevented. Rising temperatures are melting the glaciers rapidly and, according to a report by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), this melting doubled between 1980-2005. Even if the Government cuts greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in accordance with the Paris Climate Agreement, one-third of the glaciers of the Himalayan and Hindu Kush mountain ranges will melt by the end of the 21st century. Hence, urgent action needs to be taken sooner as natural disasters are likely to increase with temperature rise.
An increase in natural disasters in India is a result of climate change, but an increase in their impact is due to overexploitation of natural resources. The Centre and State Governments have been pursuing pro-corporate development by ignoring environmental norms.
Uttarakhand is inviting climatic tragedies and destroying its beauty by regularly flouting the Environmental Impact Assessment Laws to build a 900-km-long stretch of the Char Dham route. Shockingly, these roads pass through an environmentally-sensitive zone. The construction of this 900 km stretch was done by dividing it into 53 small sections.
The Environmental Impact Assessment Department’s permission has to be sought to construct more than 100 km of a road that is passing through environmentally sensitive areas. This road’s width is being kept at 12 metres, for which land with a width of 24 metres would be required. Significantly, most European countries have kept the width of their roads in the mountains to eight metres.
In the aftermath of the February 7 catastrophe, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that the country stands by Uttarakhand. He also announced financial assistance to the families of the victims. But such promises and financial aid are of no use for Uttarakhandis as continuous negligence of environmental regulations by successive governments has led to repeated natural disasters. A few lakhs in assistance from the Centre and State won’t help people rebuild their houses or bring back their loved ones. To prevent such emotional and financial losses to the people, the Government should mend its pro-corporate economic development methods.
The massive loss of life and property resulting from natural disasters should serve as a warning signal to the Central Government and make it realise that it must strictly abide by environmental norms. However, the Government seems to be in no mood to hear the alarm bells as the Central Government is planning to relax environmental standards for Mopa Airport in Goa, sand mining in Uttar Pradesh, Sterlite Copper in Tamil Nadu and construction activities in and around Delhi, which have been blocked by the Supreme Court and the National Green Tribunal. Meanwhile, the NITI Aayog — the Government’s apex think tank — has commissioned a study that seeks to examine the “unintended economic consequences” of judicial decisions that have hindered and stalled big projects on environmental pretexts.
If mountainous areas of the country, including Uttarakhand and their people, are to be saved, then it is incumbent upon the Central Government not to carry out development work in these areas without seeking the opinions of geologists and the locals.
The Government should immediately ban unsustainable development projects in the hilly regions, be it the Char Dham route or hydropower projects. If this does not happen, the people of these areas will be forced to endure frequent natural disasters in the future. The people living in the hilly regions and the country at large demand that the Central Government adopt a pro-people and pro-nature development model instead of a pro-corporate economic development one.
Kaur is professor, Department of Geography, Punjabi University, Patiala, and Visiting Professor, IMPRI, while Kumar is Director, IMPRI. The views expressed are personal.
Who is giving patronage to Mukhtar Ansari? Who is gunning for him, and why?
Arguing in the Supreme Court, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi termed him “a small fry”. However, anyone who knows even a little about don-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari and his deadly gang war in the badlands of Uttar Pradesh (UP), is aware that the name is enough to send a chill down the spine of many politicians, bureaucrats, police officers and, especially, businessmen. Ansari, an MLA from UP’s Mau Sadar, is currently lodged in the Ropar Jail of Punjab in connection with an extortion case. The Punjab and UP Governments are at loggerheads for his custody, with the former trying every trick up its sleeve to keep him from the UP Police’s hands on health grounds. A natural question to ask would be as to what makes a dreaded criminal so important that UP’s BJP-led Government and Punjab’s Congress Government are fighting over his custody in the Supreme Court. Well, there is nothing new in Ansari’s name being associated with heinous crimes like murder, extortion and kidnapping, but what actually has pitted him against the saffron party is the chilling murder of then BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai in 2005, who and six associates were gunned down by assailants armed with AK-47 rifles. The murder was more than sensational as 400 rounds were fired. Ansari, the main accused, was acquitted by the CBI court in 2019.
Recently, the BJP’s Mohammadabad MLA Alka Rai, the slain MLA’s widow, wrote to Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra accusing the party Governments in Punjab and Rajasthan of shielding Ansari. However, the story is not as simple as it appears. The UP Police has of late become “trigger-happy” and several criminals have been gunned down in encounters that the Opposition terms “extra-judicial killings”. Last year, wanted criminal Vikas Dubey was shot by the State police after the vehicle carrying him “overturned” on a highway and Dubey “tried to escape after snatching a gun” from a policeman. There is no denying that Ansari must be fearful of meeting the same fate if Punjab jail authorities hand him over to the UP Police. But there is another side to the story: The criminal-politician-bureaucrat-police nexus is nothing new and Ansari must have been part of many such connections at the interstate and intrastate level, and it is only in the interest of such corrupt elements to exterminate the voices that can reveal their dark secrets. Now, who is giving patronage to Ansari and who is out to get him, and why, is the moot question.
The Government’s guidelines regulating OTT platforms and social media raise a few questions
The first-phase lockdown of last year’s pandemic outbreak spawned newfound attention and increased popularity for a number of web series as cinema halls had been ordered shut and people were forced to remain closeted inside their residences. Several big-budget and multi-starrer movies, which had been slated for theatrical release in the last week of March 2020 and beyond, fell to the Government’s social distancing order and, to make up for the imminent financial losses in light of the prevailing uncertain conditions, chose the new fad of releasing the films online. As days gave way to weeks and months wore on, the average Indian family — already reeling under fear psychosis and bored to death by now — rediscovered the panacea of entertainment in various web series streaming on Over-The-Top (OTT) platforms. So far, so good. Mirzapur aired, made a splash, but there was no hue and cry. Along came Saif Ali Khan-starrer Tandav, focusing on how politics affects collegial environment, and all hell broke loose. Everybody seems to have conveniently forgotten Haasil (released in 2003, starring Jimmy Sheirgill, Irrfan Khan and Ashutosh Rana, directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia) which was a gripping narrative based on the same subject. As avid watchers of the series among the OTT viewers point out, the ostensible objection — “hurting religious sentiments” by taking umbrage to the Shiva scene in the first episode — was just a ruse to express anger against the way the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019, and the National Register of Citizens issues had been projected in the series.
The “religious sentiments” angle, coupled with allegations of the earlier series brimming with sexually explicit scenes and foul language, brought the spotlight back on Mirzapur, too, though there had been no protests during its run earlier. The tepid response of Twitter officials to the Centre’s recent earnest entreaty to suspend the handles of certain “rumour-mongering members” during the ongoing farmers’ agitation, especially in the wake of the January 26 violence at Red Fort, seems to have added fuel to the authorities’ displeasure and, therefore, today we find both the OTT platforms and social media facing a barrage of directives. The question now arises: Are the Government guidelines regulating the two media correct, or could it lead to pressure or censorship on them? Experts opine that the 29 pages of rules raise concerns over several factors, including the privacy of users and censorship of digital news media, which will ultimately affect citizens’ rights. It seems the Government just does not like us to have fun and make personal choices. It had better heed common sense and allow its adult population, those who are eligible to vote and can take learned decisions in all other spheres of life, to decide for itself whether it wants to watch a particular show or series. Of course, cracking down on the creators and propagators of fake news is a different ball game altogether.
As an air trip to Goa for an event after a year-long hiatus revealed, being constantly stressed about the virus is clearly not the way to be
It is not good form to write columns in the first person but since this column talks of a personal experience, I will be writing it as such. The experience in question was catching a flight for the first time in 350 days. Part of my work involves evaluating and reviewing motor vehicles and that invariably involves a lot of travel, although the COVID-19 pandemic ensured that the few drives we did in 2020 all occurred in the Delhi-NCR and were fairly well-managed. Car companies don’t do events in places like Goa because of the sun and sand or because folks like me enjoy flying, there are hundreds of decent hotel properties in Goa and the State is connected by flight to almost every major city in India. So, to do a media drive in Goa makes immense sense; in fact it is probably cheaper than organising individual drives in different cities and is definitely logistically easier.
I had promised myself that I would not fly in 2020, even after flights resumed and a few isolated automotive events took place. But as the new year rolled around and the first events began to be planned, one could not put off travel much longer. After all, working in a newspaper, I had been reading first-hand how the Government has more or less brought the pandemic in check. Of course, by the time I did eventually fly that had actually changed a bit with the new strain emerging in Maharashtra. However, my tickets were booked and I was taking a flight after 350 days.
A drive that once seemed like a weekly commute to Terminal 3 from my house appeared strange, not least because this was my first time in a taxi after almost a year. Traffic to and from the airport seemed normal and the few jams were more to do with the construction of the new flyover taxiways. Since my flight was in the afternoon, there was less chaos at the drop-off area. Airlines are running at a restricted domestic schedule at about three-quarters capacity and with very few international flights, India’s largest airport terminal did not feel crowded.
We have all heard the term, the “new normal”, things like working from home, fewer people commuting and the need for hygiene. But other than everyone wearing face masks and the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) staff wearing shields and attaching a handle to their metal detector “wands”, flying in 2021 was not very different from flying in 2019 and before. Though I did sanitise my hands after going through security which I feel is the biggest congregation point of the entire flying process, it felt the same as before. I must state, at no point did I feel unsafe and while I would not go as far as to claim that there was a laissez faire attitude, you really would not have guessed that there was a pandemic going on.
Now part of this can be explained by India’s caseload, something that was well explained by oncologist and award-winning medical writer Siddhartha Mukherjee in The New Yorker recently. It elucidated on the concept that because we live in India and have been exposed to so many pathogens before, maybe we had been exposed to a “relative” of the COVID-19 virus and that gave our bodies the B-cells and the T-cells needed to deal with the virus. What else could explain the low death toll in India, many parts of sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia? One could argue that the “true” death toll has been suppressed but there is no way to hide hundreds of thousands of deaths; people would be talking about it, and that clearly isn’t the case.
That said, we should still be careful, particularly since there is in all likelihood a more virulent strain doing the rounds. It may (or may not) be more deadly, but it would be stupid to find that out the hard way. I was flying on Vistara and while mask compliance was followed, the flight was packed with families travelling to Goa to get away from the boredom, one presumes. Some passengers stuck in the middle seats were covered in their woven-fibre protective suits and most people kept their face-shields on during the flight.
But it was not so much the flying experience, but what I saw in Goa which was scary. My hosts had organised dinner at a popular nightspot and it was crowded. There were few precautions being taken and while the bouncers were taking temperatures using an infra-red scanner, it was quite evident that the public at large had travelled to the party State to leave their Coronavirus worries behind. ‘Thalassa’ on Vagator beach was packed to the rafters and nobody appeared to care.
With the Goa airport seeing flights from every corner of the country even if some States ask for the returnees to be tested, the crowds at restaurants and bars were back to pre-COVID levels, just that they were almost completely Indian with very few foreigners. That said, there were some expats around; those who had business and diplomatic visas and they were praising the Government and Indians for taking such a “Zen” attitude to the pandemic.
It was really incredible. Either people were not worried or they had reverted to their usual “dekha jayega” (we will see) attitude. Or maybe this was another example of Goan “susegad”, the chilled-out laid-back attitude. I still don’t know whether it is the attitude to adopt, but being constantly stressed about the virus is clearly not the way to be. But the “new normal” doesn’t really seem very different from the “old normal”.
(The author is Managing Editor, The Pioneer. The views expressed are personal.)
We must also develop a metric for quantifying the social cost of other components so that the impact of local air pollution, too, can be monetised for policy formulation
Actions on the climate change front are again in the news in the US after President Joe Biden took charge. One of his first executive orders pertained to reassembling a federal, cross-Government team to figure out the “social cost of carbon.”
So, what is the social cost of carbon (SCC) or of Green House Gases (GHG)? SCC is the present value of future harm caused by an incremental ton of carbon dioxide emissions.
It is difficult to estimate SCC because carbon emissions, climate change, and economic harm are related through complex processes that are not fully understood. Additionally, the rate at which to discount future harm is contentious and critical to the magnitude of the present value.
As per the Interagency Working Group on Social Cost of Carbon, the US Government’s technical support document 2010: “The SCC is an estimate of the monetised damages associated with an incremental increase in carbon emissions in a given year. It is intended to include (but is not limited to) changes in net agricultural productivity, human health, property damages from increased flood risk and the value of ecosystem services due to climate change.”
It is a well-established fact that consequent to climate change, countries face a slew of adverse impacts; damages that are not adequately quantified while assessing these impacts. Developing economies like India are going to bear an unduly larger share of such impacts.
An analysis of the Climate Risk Index (CRI), 2021, shows India to be among the top 10 most affected countries in 2019 on account of climate change-induced extreme weather events.
India’s annual monsoon season continued for a month longer than usual. From June to the end of September 2019, 110 per cent of the normal rainfall occurred, a record since 1994.
According to the CRI, the floods caused by the heavy rains were responsible for 1,800 deaths across 14 States and led to the displacement of 1.8 million people. Overall, 11.8 million people were affected by the intense monsoon season with the economic damage estimated to be $10 billion.
Furthermore, with a total of eight tropical cyclones, 2019 was one of the most active Northern Indian Ocean cyclone seasons on record. Six of the eight cyclones intensified to become “very severe.”
The worst was Cyclone Fani that occurred in May 2019 and impacted a total of 28 million people, killing nearly 90 people in India and Bangladesh and causing economic losses of $8.1 billion. Then, there are other consequences in terms of impacts on human health and on food security, to name a few.
The relation between fossil fuels and climate change, too, is now accepted beyond any doubt. However, while carrying out the cost-benefit analysis of different options to replace fossil fuels, these damages — also known as “externalities” — are either not taken into account or remain fuzzy. And that is where a tool like the SCC may help.
As per the Institute for Policy Integrity, the SCC is “a metric designed to quantify and monetise climate damages, representing the net economic cost of carbon dioxide emissions.”
In a country like ours that is trying to transition to clean energy through its ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in terms of emission-intensity reductions and quantum increase in non-fossil electricity; it is imperative that policymaking and regulatory frameworks are informed by scientific evidence.
This, in turn, demands a methodology to quantify the impacts that are based on verifiable numbers and are standardised across sectors.
But even more importantly, it is developed in an academically rigorous, transparent and peer-reviewed process so as to have universal acceptability.
And that is where an inter-agency or an inter-ministerial approach helps in forging a joint ownership. Given that this is not a one-time exercise, a formal mechanism needs to be put in place.
The Apex Committee for Implementation of Paris Agreement (AIPA) constituted by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change (MoEFCC) may very well provide such a unified platform. The mechanism must also provide for engaging with the public and other stakeholders in an ongoing fashion.
Going forward, we should aim at not only developing a metric for quantifying the social cost of GHG but also of other components so that the impact of local air pollution, too, can be holistically monetised from a policy formulation perspective.
It is time that such complex matters attract a more science-based approach, thereby obviating any kind of biases.
(The writer is Senior Director, Social Transformation, TERI. The views expressed are personal.)
It’s vital to be calm, think rationally and make decisions that affect your work environment positively
The year 2020, and the Coronavirus outbreak that dominated it, set everyone back, whether it was work or life. However, the contagion’s economic impact was felt more than the social one. The financial implications of the pandemic had everyone in a tizzy, confused and thinking, will I make it? Will I survive? It took a toll on the global economy, businesses, work, personal affairs at home and made everyone question and rethink their priorities and then put them in survival mode. One of the key takeaways from the outbreak, especially for entrepreneurs leading organisations was: Invest in your mental health. That is and should be a priority. If you have peace of mind, in spite of everything else falling, crumbling around you, half the battle is won. It’s important to be calm, think rationally and make decisions that affect your health and your work environment in a positive way.
The healthcare sector was overwhelmed when the pandemic hit the country. Doctors and nurses were overworked as was the other hospital staff. People were in a state of panic. However, there is no overcoming something if you are in a constant state of flux. This is especially true of leaders tasked with guiding an organisation. They have to come to grips with the reality that the pandemic will stay for a long time and the only way to work and move forward is to be transparent with staff, hear them out, value their inputs and look after them.
The biggest change that the outbreak brought to our lives was the need to maintain social distancing, which gave birth to the culture of work from home (WFH). Hospitals were overflowing with Coronavirus patients and medical professionals were in constant contact with people, other than patients. It was important for most medical facilities to cut down on administrative staff and allow WFH in order to curb the spread of the contagion. This move gave doctors and nurses free movement, enabled quick decisions and resulted in quicker turnarounds.
As the CEO of a hospital, it was amazing to see people adapt to two roles and the extra workload more efficiently and quickly. It made one realise that the biggest learning from the pandemic was WFH. It changed the way we function as human beings and value the time and effort that someone else puts in. It also increased efficiency and kept employees and their families safe.
There was a lesson for leaders as well. If you take tough but benevolent decisions when you are the head of an organisation, people value you more, respect you and put in that extra bit to make sure that the company succeeds. Cutting down on manpower and cost-cutting is never the solution. The mental health of staff is very important, not just good salaries and, employees run a company based on the top leadership’s vision.
Another lesson that the contagion taught us was the fact that women, who have always been a stabilising and calming factor in society, are equally adept at dealing with an emergency. During this pandemic, women Covid warriors, frontline workers, office-goers, homemakers and Government employees rose to the occasion and in some cases were leading from the front.
Lastly, technology has come to the rescue of mankind as we have been forced to change the way we work, handle documents, process information, hold meetings, seminars and even deliver healthcare. One also has to realise that even though we are in this situation right now, it will change and things will go back to normal. But for now, we need to learn and adapt to this so-called new normal. Entrepreneurs, especially women leaders, have to learn and grow from this.
(The writer is CEO, Prayag Hospital. The views expressed are personal.)
As long as primary Budget deficits are not too large, the main problem is to stabilise public debt, independent of the size of the economy so that it may not go beyond control
The previous decade saw the fastest increase in debt in emerging economies in the last 50 years. The IMF estimated that global public debt at the end of 2020 would touch 98 per cent of the GDP, and India’s gross Government debt would be at 90 per cent of the GDP. According to the IMF’s Fiscal Monitor, the debt-to-GDP ratio exceeds 100 per cent in most OECD countries and close to 100 per cent in emerging ones. Among the major economies, only China (66.5 per cent), Australia (70 per cent) and Germany (72 per cent) have fared better. The problem economies of Italy and Greece have seen debt levels rising to 158 per cent and 200 per cent of the GDP, respectively, while Japan’s debt is 264 per cent. From 2021 onwards, global debt will rise higher than in the pre-Covid times. A credible medium-term fiscal framework is essential to combat rising debt, but with the pandemic still out of control, additional revenue mobilisation necessary for public spending on health and infrastructure is now more difficult than ever before in most developing countries. The saving grace is that borrowing is now cheap, thanks to the interest rates falling to exceptionally low levels and is expected to remain lower than the growth rates in most countries. According to S&P Global, in 2023, growth will outpace interest rates not only in all rich countries, but also in 53 out of 60 emerging economies. The “growth-corrected interest rate”, the differential between interest and nominal growth rates, will be -3.6 per cent in India, -6.5 per cent in China and -33.8 per cent in Argentina.
This legitimately raises the question, should emerging economies also rethink their fiscal limits? The Economist quoted India’s budgeted fiscal deficit of 9.5 per cent of the GDP this fiscal year with no road map to bring it below the three per cent limit prescribed by the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, while it noted that the latest Economic Survey had also highlighted that India’s interest rate has been below its growth rate “by norm, not by exception”, and its assertion that higher debt and fiscal spending during an economic crisis should not cause unnecessary worries. But Fitch Ratings, noted that in the last decade, the average interest rate had fallen from four per cent to two per cent in developed economies, while across emerging markets, it had increased from 4.3-5.1 per cent. Thus the benefits of lower rates are mostly available to rich nations.
The classical Domar Model lays down two conditions for sustainability of Government debt: First, the nominal growth rate should exceed the interest rate on public debt and, second, the primary account of the Government, which means taking out the interest payment, should not have any deficit. If both conditions are satisfied, the debt stock in GDP will decrease fast, and even if the primary account has a deficit, it will ultimately converge to a sustainable level. But if the growth rate lags behind the interest rate, then public debt will increase indefinitely to be unsustainable. Thus public debt can stabilise at a higher level but this would render a country vulnerable to economic shocks. However, since this model does not consider the interdependencies existing between the interest rate, the structure of public spending, the degree of public indebtedness and the growth rate which influence each other, economists Hamilton and Flavin suggested another model. According to it, the inter-temporal Budget constraint must be satisfied to make the debt stock sustainable, which requires the present value of future primary surpluses to cover the size of the current public debt. The uncertainty of future values of projections, interest rates and inflation remains the weakness of this model, but whatever model is used, increasing public debt does not necessarily imply its unsustainability, especially when a country needs additional finance to carry out structural forms or for making capital investments on infrastructure.
As long as primary Budget deficits are not too large, the main problem is to stabilise public debt, independent of the size of the economy so that it may not go beyond control. This is simple budgetary arithmetic: If the debt was stable at 60 per cent of the GDP with a primary deficit of three per cent, to stabilise it at 80 per cent would require the primary deficit to be limited to four per cent. The Economic Survey points out that GDP growth in India has always exceeded interest rates in the last 25 years, though the primary account has often been in deficit, but less than the maximum limit defined by the debt sustainability equations. The survey concludes that even in the worst case scenario, with real growth being only four per cent for the next 10 years and high primary deficits 6.8 per cent of the GDP (Centre plus States), five per cent inflation and a nominal interest rate of six per cent, public debt will still be sustainable. This scenario is not peculiar to India. The IMF says that emerging economies have experienced growth rates exceeding interest rates 75 per cent of the time. Of course, there is an element of risk in case of high prevalence of external debt in the overall debt portfolio because if the exchange rate weakens, the debt-to-GDP ratio will rise sharply even if the interest rate remains modest. But for India, this risk is minimal as external debt constitutes only about six per cent of our total liabilities (Rs 5.85 lakh crore in 2019-20).
Government debt amounted to 73.8 per cent of the GDP in 2019-20, before the pandemic pushed it much higher. As per the road map prescribed by the 15th Finance Commission, India’s debt should decline marginally from 89.8 per cent to 85.7 per cent of the GDP over 2020-26, but the decline will practically take place in the last three years. Thus we need to stabilise our debt around that level provided these projections hold. This may not be the case as additional spending will be required on health and infrastructure.
But the moot question is whether the high debt level is desirable even if it is sustainable, as public borrowing generally crowds out private investment and hurts the economy. Perhaps the answer lies in how the borrowed funds are used. If the Government spends on investment, like the 26 per cent increase in capital spending budgeted for the next fiscal, this risk would be less, especially when the economy is operating below capacity as is the case now; public spending can then bring in additional private investment by improving incomes and profitability.
However, this is not the first time a debt pandemic has hit the world and there were three earlier waves of debt accumulation during 1970-89, 1990-2001 and 2002-09, all of which began during periods of low real interest rates and easy access to borrowing from the financial markets. Each caused global recessions in 1982, 1991 and 2009 and economic downturns in 1998 and 2001, and were followed by structural reforms designed to lower vulnerabilities, with greater reserve accumulation and strengthening of policy frameworks. Controls like inflation targeting, fiscal rules and more robust financial sector supervision became the norm.
We are now riding the crest of the fourth wave that began in 2010 but peaked during the pandemic with the slowing of economic growth in most countries. The conditions were remarkably similar to those after the 2008 meltdown, when interest rates were low and access to financial markets for capital was easy due to the banks having extended their outreach remarkably. As the pandemic now tests the resilience of economies, a global recession which was already raging, is now pushing the world into a deep debt crisis, which marked the end of each previous wave. Like in the case of previous waves, now also deeper structural reforms are called for. In the Indian context, this will mean many more reforms of the factor markets, along with reform of agriculture and financial sectors while strengthening the overall regulatory mechanisms. Appropriate policy choices are crucial because once recovery gets underway, only reforms and the accompanying institutional mechanisms can help restore our fiscal and debt sustainability.
(The writer is a former Director-General of the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India and an academic. The views expressed are personal.)
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