Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: IHR- International Health Regulations.
Mains level: Paper 2- India needs to make international law a keystone of its diplomacy.
Context
A resolution has been moved in the US Senate calling on the international community to inquire into the origins of the virus in China’s Wuhan province. Delhi could learn a trick or two from Beijing on how to make international law the keystone of India’s diplomacy, especially in the multilateral domain.
Fixing responsibility for the outbreak on China
- Compensation demand: Lawyers and activists have begun to sue China in US courts demanding compensation. Politicians are not far behind.
- The U.S. Senate resolution: A resolution has been moved in the US Senate calling on the international community to inquire into the origins of the virus in China’s Wuhan province, quantify the damage inflicted on the rest of the world, and design a mechanism of reparations from Beijing.
- Basis of the demand for compensation: The case for China’s culpability is based on the principles of state responsibility and Beijing’s alleged failure to respect the obligation, under the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR), to notify the world on the outbreak of the epidemic.
- Is the basis valid? Many international jurists dismiss these claims by citing the principles of sovereign state immunity, the lack of precedent in holding states to account for the spread of infectious disease beyond their borders and the absence of provisions for reparations under the IHR.
The interplay between legality, moralpolitik and geopolitics
- Gulliver and Lilliputs of the world: On the face of it, China is too much of a Gulliver to be tied down by legal Lilliputs.
- The Legalpolitik: Before we dismiss international law as not real law, “legalpolitik” can put some real pressure on big nations and contribute to the power play among them.
- Role of public opinion: As public opinion began to intrude into diplomacy over the last two centuries, legality and moralpolitik have become an integral part of geopolitics.
Difficulty in proving the case against China
- The cost of a pandemic: Most world leaders know, whether they say it aloud or not, the international costs of the pandemic could have been far lesser if China had acknowledged the spread of the virus from Wuhan early on and informed other countries.
- It is one thing to know but entirely another to prove it under the law.
- The pursuit of claims is a waste of time: Most governments believe the pursuit of claims against Beijing is a waste of time.
- Political heft of China: If Beijing can make the World Health Organisation toe its line and prevent the rest of the world, including US President Donald Trump, from describing COVID-19 as the “China Virus”, it is unlikely to be impressed by a few legal impresarios from the West.
- Precedence of defying the law: After all, China had dismissed the unanimous verdict of the International Court of Justice in 2016 on Beijing’s territorial claims over the South China Sea.
- Beijing did not even bother to appear in the case filed by the Philippines.
- China had simply declared that the ICJ has no jurisdiction in the matter.
The relation between power and law in international relations
- Power prevails: That power tends to prevail over law is certainly truer in international relations than domestic politics.
- Law in the domestic domain: In the domestic domain, the state as the highest authority compels citizens to abide by the law, with force if necessary.
- Law in the international arena: In the international arena, no single actor has a monopoly over the instruments of force.
- We have multiple sovereigns but no “world government” that can compel deviant states to conform to rules.
Role of the UNSC
- In theory, the members of the UN Security Council can authorise coercion — in the form of economic sanctions or military force.
- This, in turn, involves building a consensus among major powers, including the five permanent members of the UNSC who wield a veto.
- In reality, then, the UNSC can’t act against one of the five permanent members.
- Beijing, which was so eager to get the UNSC to discuss the situation in Jammu and Kashmir since last August, has simply blocked all suggestions for a discussion on the corona crisis in recent days.
Are laws meaningless in the global arena?
- Legal narratives have the weight of their own: While outcomes in international conflicts tend to be defined by power, the international discourse on any conflict today is framed in legal terms.
- Whether it is a conversation between a state and its citizen or among governments or in a country’s outreach to the global society, legal narratives have a weight all of their own.
- Delhi, for example, has struggled in recent days to counter the global interpretation of its domestic actions.
- Importance of legal argument: Winning the legal argument, China has learnt from the history of great power relations, is very much part of great power jousting.
- The negative lessons are from the Soviet Union that dismissed the Western legal arguments during the Cold War as based on the logic of capital and empire.
- That did not convert many beyond the choir.
- The positive lessons are from Great Britain and the United States.
- The enduring Anglo-Saxon hegemony is rooted not just in economic and military power. It has always been underwritten by a powerful legal tradition that shapes the global narrative on most issues.
- China developing own narrative: As it mounts a massive propaganda offensive against the US on the corona crisis, China’s state lawyers have filed a case in the Wuhan Intermediate People’s Court last week accusing various US government agencies of covering up the origin of the coronavirus.
- China’s own narrative: It is no longer about China defending against a powerful international narrative; it is developing one of its own.
Conclusions
- 1. Make international law keystone of diplomacy: India has been at the receiving end of China’s legalpolitik — most recently on the quest for the membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the constitutional changes in Kashmir.
- Delhi could learn a trick or two from Beijing on how to make international law the keystone of India’s diplomacy, especially in the multilateral domain.
- 2. Reinvest in the geo-legal arts: If China could emulate US and Britain on leveraging legalpolitik for strategic ends, India should not find it too hard to reinvest in the geo-legal arts that Delhi inherited from the Anglo-Saxons but seems to have lost along the way.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- Regulation of private sector to deal with the COVID-19.
Context
The current COVID-19 crisis that India is battling has brought into sharp focus the public health system’s inadequacy to cope with it.
Contradictory scenario between public and private healthcare delivery
- The contrast between public and private: Hospitals with state-of-the-art equipment rivalling five-star hotels in their facilities are mushrooming mostly in cities even as the overburdened public hospitals are valiantly fighting to cope.
- Dismal picture in rural areas: As far as the rural areas are concerned, the community health centres and primary health centres and sub-centres present an even more dismal picture in terms of availability of medicine stock, trained para-medical staff, and doctors and nurses.
- However, it is not as if urban hospitals offer patients excellent care. A common and widely held general misperception is that the private healthcare system is better than the public one.
- Why private is not always better? Complaints of non-transparent billing, demanding exorbitant sums in advance even in a medical emergency, and cutting corners in services are all too familiar, as are cases of the denial of services.
- In semi-rural areas and towns, the private sector is not necessarily similar to hospitals in cities.
- The private hospitals in these areas are small and have basic infrastructure and limited medical and non-medical staff. Unlike the cities, the power and water supply in these areas also constitute a problem to the functioning of these hospitals.
Problems in the public healthcare system
- Within the public sector health system, there are a number of trends again that add to the dismal picture.
- A high number of patients: Doctors in the public hospitals deal with an overwhelming number of patients majorly from the poor and marginalised sections.
- Issue of contractual staff: Health activists have also pointed out that the growing trend of contractual hiring of paramedical and allied staff leads to an insecurity among them, and thus affects overall caregiving to patients.
- Consequently, the poor patients’ families, frustrated by the lack of infrastructure and services, turn their anger upon the doctors and nurses.
- What are the implications? The constant vilification of the public hospital staff coupled with starving these hospitals of resources has led to the view that the private hospitals are “much better” despite their exorbitant rates.
State-wise variation in healthcare
- States subject: Health is a state subject, and it is well known that the health delivery systems are not uniform across states.
- Kerala a role model: Kerala is often held up as a role model generally, and even now in the manner in which it has dealt with the COVID-19 crisis.
- The dismal system in North India: As it is, certain states in North India have abysmal healthcare systems, and a couple does not have any testing facilities, the media has reported.
Getting the private sector involved in COVID-19 testing
- Undoubtedly, at present, the private sector must be involved in screening, tests and treatment for COVID-19.
- The highly trained professionals in this sector can contribute enormously by helping scale up the testing efforts.
- Importance of large-scale testing: In South Korea too, it was large-scale testing that was instrumental in reducing mortality rates.
- The pricing issue: Services across sectors must not be priced differently at a time like this. The media has reported that there is a difference of opinion between the government and private sector on the price of COVID-19 tests flowing from the prices of test kits.
- Need for the protocol: A clear and non-negotiable protocol for the private sector must be established regarding the present crisis and how the government is going to help financially and otherwise in dealing with it.
Way forward
- Regulate the testing, screening and treatment facilities: The experience with the government offering subsidies to hospitals, especially in urban areas in terms of land and other concessions, has not borne out desired objectives such as better care for the poor.
- Taking a cue from this, the testing, screening, and treatment facilities must be regulated in terms of pricing and quality.
- Focus on strengthening the public health system: The Supreme Court has held healthcare to be a fundamental right under Article 21. The biggest lesson of the current crisis is that political will must focus on strengthening the public health system.
Conclusion
The finance minister has announced a package of `1.7 lakh crore to deal with this catastrophic situation. This is welcome, but long-term resource allocation to invigorate the public health system must be a continual and parallel process.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Essential Services Maintenance Act.
Mains level: Paper 3- Managing the agriculture and livestock sector.
Context
Amid lockdown, we need an action plan to manage our agriculture, livestock sectors.
Need for an immediate action plan to manage the agriculture and livestock sector
- The country produces around 52 crore litres of milk daily.
- There are also 80 crore-odd live poultry, both broilers and layers, at any given time, supplying meat and eggs to consumers.
- Link with the other producers: These birds and animals, in turn, support the livelihoods of poultry and dairy farmers, as well as those producing maize, soybean, mustard, groundnut, cotton and other coarse grains that are ingredients for livestock feed.
- It is the government’s responsibility to ensure that farmers are able to keep their animals alive and market the crop that has been, or will be, harvested during the lockdown period.
- We need an immediate action plan to manage our agriculture and livestock sectors in the interest of both producers and consumers.
Issue of implementation
- Ensuring free movements: The first thing is to ensure free movement of farm produce, livestock feed and veterinary medicines.
- Implementing the already taken decision: It is obvious that not all issues can be addressed overnight. But the minimum the government can do is to ensure ground-level implementation of already-taken decisions.
- The problem of implementation: Many essential services, for instance, were kept out of the purview of the lockdown. Food, feed and agricultural inputs have been specifically notified as essential services.
- But there are several problems at the level of implementation that are coming to notice.
- The Centre has issued various directives/notifications, many of them brief and general in nature.
- Many of these have either not reached the local authorities and police personnel or are not clearly worded. As a result, the smooth movement of essential items has been affected.
- There are also reports of conflict between the police and citizens, including people involved in the transportation and delivery of food as well as inputs to farms.
- Why good food supply line matters? The government must do to ensure that people don’t go hungry and the measures it must take to make sure people don’t crowd a few outlets, increasing the chances of the virus spreading.
- The government has announced that the beneficiaries of the public distribution system can avail three months’ ration at one go.
- The challenge of delivery: The challenge is to ensure that fair price shops deliver the provisions in an orderly manner and their supply lines remain intact.
Issue of poultry and maize farmers
- Sharp fall in poultry items: In such times, prices of essential food items are known to shoot up. But in India, prices of food items like chicken meat and eggs have registered a sharp fall.
- In Delhi’s Gazipur Mandi, for example, the price of broiler chicken has fallen from Rs 55/kg in January 2020 to Rs 24/kg in March.
- This has also pushed the maize prices down as poultry is largely fed packaged maize.
- The government may have to think of compensating poultry and maize farmers in due course.
Suggestions for improving the implementation issue
- Issue a single notification: The Centre must issue a single notification relating to food items in a standard format and uniform language so that all ambiguities are removed.
- This needs to be finalised after consultations with the stakeholders and the state governments can release it to officials working at the grassroots.
- The focus should be to address the problems arising from restrictions on the transport — between and within states — of agri-produce and inputs related to them.
- Invoke the ESMA: Another suggestion is that the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) be invoked for the delivery of all essential services relating to food to prevent disruption of supplies.
- Home delivery option: Home (street) delivery of these provisions, to avoid crowding, is a good option.
- Roping in civil society: This is also an occasion to rope in civil society. NGOs, resident welfare associations, religious organisations and paramilitary forces can be engaged for orderly and safe distribution of food — both pre-cooked and fresh.
- NGOs with experience in food preparation and distribution, such as Akshaya Patra, could guide local authorities.
- People involved in this endeavour should be provided with safety gears.
- The challenge of supplying perishables: These perishables-like fruits, vegetables and milk- must be sold in a packaged form in mobile vans. The weekly markets need to be temporarily suspended lest they spread the virus.
- Vegetable vendors can work with civil society organisations as well as e-commerce players to do this job in a safe manner.
- Retail distribution lines: Retail distribution lines need to be seamlessly linked to wholesale supply lines.
- How to manage rabi season procurement? Procurement operations for rabi crops are around the corner.
- Training and safety measures: The FCI and other procuring agencies need to be trained about safety measures and supplied safety gear.
- Providing incentives to farmers for staggered selling: Farmers could be given Rs 50/quintal per month as an incentive to stagger bringing their produce to the market — say after May 10.
- They will also need to be screened, given training and equipped with safety gear.
Suggestions to prevent post-lockdown chaos
- What will happen after the lockdown ends? Many plants are now shut or working at low capacity utilisation. Consumption by hotels and other institutions, too, is low. Nor is any export or import happening. But once the lockdown ends, there will be a rush to procure raw material, trucks and rail rakes.
- Smooth recovery: Smooth recovery from the lockdown is as important as managing supplies during the lockdown.
- Here are a few suggestions to ensure that the common man does not have to suffer hardships during and after the lockdown:
- First– Place all food items, agri-inputs, packaging material and transport services under ESMA for a six-month period to prevent profiteering.
- The MRP that was applicable in February should remain till October.
- In the case of farm produce, it helps that we are looking at a bumper crop, which makes it all the more necessary to ensure its smooth marketing.
- Second-Suspend APMC (agricultural produce market committee) laws for the next six months.
- Traders with APMC licence are bound to act as cartels during rush hour, which will hurt both farmers and consumers.
- Third-ESMA should apply to all utilities and transport services. State governments can make exemptions on a case to case basis: These exemptions should be subject to public scrutiny under the Right to Information Act.
- The government should announce the above measures well in advance.
Conclusion
The government must start planning now to prevent post-lockdown chaos, especially profiteering in the event of shortages. Smooth recovery from the lockdown is as important as managing supplies during the lockdown.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 3- Ensuring the food supply lines are not disrupted in the lockdown and suggestions to ensure it.
Context
The government must ensure that people don’t go hungry and take measures to make sure that people don’t crowd a few outlets, increasing the chances of the virus spreading.
Need for the package to compensate losses
- Welfare package: The government has announced relief measures. Last week, the Finance Minister announced a welfare package of Rs 1.7 lakh crore.
- This is too small to cope with the onslaught of the virus.
- How much a comprehensive package would cost? A package to compensate all losses, including business losses, should amount to at least Rs 5 to 6 lakh crore, if not more.
- How will the government find funds for this package?
- Funds accrued as a result of oil price crash: The windfall gains that have accrued to it as a result of the crash in crude oil prices could come in handy.
- Diver all the subsidies and development funds: The government could divert all subsidies and some development funds to fund this package and ask the country’s corporate leaders to help with funds.
- Issue clarion call for voluntary donation: The prime minister could even issue a clarion call to those with a fixed income (say above Rs 50,000/month) to voluntarily donate at least 10 per cent of their salaries to fund the battle against the virus.
Focus on supply lines of food and ways to achieve it
- Why good food supply line matters? The government must do to ensure that people don’t go hungry and the measures it must take to make sure people don’t crowd a few outlets, increasing the chances of the virus spreading.
- The government has announced that the beneficiaries of the public distribution system can avail three months’ ration at one go.
- The challenge of delivery: The challenge is to ensure that fair price shops deliver the provisions in an orderly manner and their supply lines remain intact.
- Home delivery option: Home (street) delivery of these provisions, to avoid crowding, is a good option.
- Roping in civil society: This is also an occasion to rope in civil society. NGOs, resident welfare associations, religious organisations and paramilitary forces can be engaged for orderly and safe distribution of food — both pre-cooked and fresh.
- NGOs with experience in food preparation and distribution, such as Akshaya Patra, could guide local authorities.
- People involved in this endeavour should be provided with safety gears.
- The challenge of supplying perishables: These perishables-like fruits, vegetables and milk- must be sold in a packaged form in mobile vans. The weekly markets need to be temporarily suspended lest they spread the virus.
- Vegetable vendors can work with civil society organisations as well as e-commerce players to do this job in a safe manner.
- Retail distribution lines: Retail distribution lines need to be seamlessly linked to wholesale supply lines.
- Buffer stocks: The government godowns are overflowing with wheat and rice — about 77 million metric tonnes (MMT) on March 1, against a buffer stock norm of 21.4 MMT on April 1.
- How to manage rabi season procurement? Procurement operations for rabi crops are around the corner.
- Training and safety measures: The FCI and other procuring agencies need to be trained about safety measures and supplied safety gear.
- Providing incentives to farmers for staggered selling: Farmers could be given Rs 50/quintal per month as an incentive to stagger bringing their produce to the market — say after May 10.
- They will also need to be screened, given training and equipped with safety gear.
Challenge of mandi operations for fresh produce in large mandis
- This pertains to mandi operations for fresh produce in large APMC mandis like Azadpur in Delhi and Vashi near Mumbai.
- These mandis are usually overflowing with fruits and vegetables and the labour force at these centres usually handles the produce without safety gears.
- The challenge of screening and providing safety kits to these workers is doubly daunting. The country is not fully prepared in this respect.
- The safety of workers in mandis — and other workers who handle agricultural produce — should be accorded as much priority as the safety of frontline health warriors.
- Suspend the APMC Act: We should also use this opportunity to suspend the APMC Act and encourage NGOs, civil society and corporate houses to directly procure from farmers.
Issue of poultry and maize farmers
- Sharp fall in poultry items: In such times, prices of essential food items are known to shoot up. But in India, prices of food items like chicken meat and eggs have registered a sharp fall.
- In Delhi’s Gazipur Mandi, for example, the price of broiler chicken has fallen from Rs 55/kg in January 2020 to Rs 24/kg in March.
- This has also pushed the maize prices down as poultry is largely fed packaged maize.
- The government may have to think of compensating poultry and maize farmers in due course.
Conclusion
When things settle, it will be worth knowing how the virus spread from Wuhan to Iran, Italy, Washington, India and other parts of the world. Which organisation or nation failed to blow the whistle and alert the world in time? Was it China’s failure? Or that of WHO? Or was it the failure of all governments around the world to respond quickly to the outbreak? We need better global governance for pandemics to avert the next crisis.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Mains level: Paper 2- Need for reforms in the administrative functioning of the Supreme Court.
Context
In the several cases with potential significance, there was no effective hearing at the interim stages which created fait accompli. And which results in the status quo cementing itself.
The Sabarimala case and ‘balance of convenience’ principle
- Review petition pending: Millions of disciples have protested the Court’s 2018 verdict where gender equality was held to trump the tenets of the faith and rejoiced at the November 2019 order of the Chief Justice’s bench granting their cause a fresh lease of life.
- As things stand, their review petitions are kept pending until the questions of law are determined.
- Please to enter the temple declined: In December 2019, fervent pleas on behalf of certain women devotees to enter the temple were declined, although the 2018 verdict continued to hold the field.
- Why declining the plea for entry matters? This was justified by the Court on a “balance of convenience”, thereby laying down a new principle for not directing the implementation of its own judgement.
Pendency of Article 370 challenge case hearing
- Nine judge bench: This year it was decided to put together the nine-judge bench to hear the cases on an urgent basis.
- Kashmir case on the backburner: But with two judges from the ongoing Kashmir/Article 370 challenges also a part of the Sabarimala case, it would mean that the Kashmir issues would be put on the back burner in the middle of its hearing.
- This is despite the advocates representing the right of women’s entry stating that they had no objection to the Kashmir cases being heard first.
- Then, barely a day into the hearing, a strain of swine flu reached some of the members of the Bench, leading to a postponement of hearings till the middle of March.
- Now, with a fierce pandemic enveloping the globe, the case is adjourned indefinitely.
Criticism of administrative functioning of the SC
- Over the last few months, the Supreme Court has been besieged by criticism of its administrative functioning.
- Delay in the hearing of important cases: Cases that have customarily been heard with alacrity, like those concerning personal liberty, law and order and criminal investigation, have been posted after long intervals with the Government being granted the luxury of time to respond.
- No effective hearing in cases with immediacy: Where immediacy is pre-eminent so that fait accompli may not be created, as with the validity of the Kashmir notifications, the CAA and the electoral bonds, there have been no effective hearings at the interim stage.
- Thus, the status quo slowly cements itself.
Reason for problems in administrative functions of the SC
- Dual role played by the CJI: Since the early years of the judiciary, one person has been given the onerous dual charge of heading both the administrative and judicial functions of the court.
- As a result, apart from sitting every day, reading briefs, hearing arguments and delivering detailed judgements, the Chief Justice has to also act as the final authority for all service-related matters of the Court’s 2,500 employees, issue office orders to streamline the registry.
- The CJI also supervise measures for security and infrastructure, chair committees, correspond with and entertain judicial delegations, attend symposia, delegate subject matters among colleagues, constitute benches of varying strengths and interview candidates for the various courts.
- In the old days, when the burden of cases was modest, these tasks would not have been challenging.
- But in the present time, not only are they overwhelming, but they also bring in their wake a host of attacks on the person who occupies that high office.
Need for the Chief Executive Officer in the SC
- Administrative functioning of the SC: In all the administrative tasks, the Chief Justice is assisted by a team of registrars, who are headed by the secretary-general.
- As they are junior judicial officers, they neither have the training nor the complete independence to take steps towards course correction.
- The requirement of CEO: This is why the Supreme Court sorely requires a chief executive officer – an independent professional who is equipped with the day-to-day management of the Court and is not beholden to the judges in any way.
- How it will help? The CEO will be charged with the entire mission of running the Court so that the judges can concentrate on what they are trained and experienced to do – adjudicate.
- Operational autonomy: The CEO will, of course, have to be given adequate operational autonomy and be answerable to a committee of the Court, comprising judges and bar representatives, thereby providing for a professional process, much like in the corporate sphere.
- With this, the judges will at least be spared the charges that they have had to withstand over the last few years.
Conclusion
It is only for politicians to concern themselves with public opinion, not for judges. They are weaponised by the Constitution to serve the cause of justice, and in this, as per Article 144, all civil and judicial authorities are enjoined to cooperate. Just a few blows of the gavel to any misadventures would be sufficient to send the message loud and clear: That the Court offers no sanctuary to the executive knaves.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- The lockdown hits the poor hardest and how it could have been avoided?
Context
Lockdown announcement has not been matched by national strategy — on containing fallout for poor.
Two arguments advanced against lockdown
- India’s decision to lock down was necessary. Two arguments are being advanced against it.
- The first argument: India is a poor economy, with millions at the margins of subsistence, who cannot bear the consequences of a lockdown. The density and living conditions in India make social distancing difficult in many cases.
- The second argument: It is that the extent of community transmission does not justify such drastic measures.
What are the justifications for the lockdown?
- The only hope: Precisely because millions in India are vulnerable and will not later have the possibilities of quarantining or medical care, the only hope we have of securing their lives is to slow down the spread of the virus as much as possible.
- And the only shot you have at it is when community transmission is possibly still at manageable levels.
- There is, therefore, a bit of bad faith in using the poor as the basis for expressing scepticism at the need for a lockdown. That is the most insidious form of privilege.
- The risks of any catastrophic spread will be even more incalculable for the poor.
Underscoring the importance of federalism and decentralisation
- States responding in innovative ways: One of the more encouraging things has been the way in which several state governments like Punjab, Odisha, Kerala, Delhi and others have come into their own, innovating under difficult circumstances.
- Role of panchayat and local officials: The much-neglected panchayat and local officials are key nodes in keeping track of possible cases and the creation of quarantining infrastructure.
- Role of frontline workers: It would also be churlish not to acknowledge the ways in which most of the frontline workers of the state are responding, learning and innovating in this situation.
- Federalism and decentralisation: If anything, this crisis is bringing home the importance of both federalism and decentralisation as central to a resilient governance architecture.
The preparation and follow-up of the lockdown
- But the national preparation and follow-up to take full advantage of the lockdown do not inspire full confidence.
- Lack of strategy: The announcement of the lockdown has not been matched by a commensurate national strategy.
- This is manifest, in the early signals on the following two important aspects:
- Containing the economic fallout for the poor.
- Building up the health infrastructure.
- It is, admittedly, early days; but the signs are not good.
Economic fallout for the poor
- Focus is not on the poor: In the entire framing of the problem, the poor have been at best an afterthought, at worst expendable damage.
- Steps taken not adequate: Steps like health insurance cover for frontline workers, increased food rations, are welcome steps. But a crisis of this magnitude required assurance to the most vulnerable that no stops will be pulled to secure their futures.
- Instead, what you got was incrementalism of the worst kind, masquerading as a big commitment.
- Low cash transfer: The cash transfers, in particular, through different schemes, are shockingly low.
- Need for the unprecedented social security support: This crisis is one of the rare instances where economists and even bankers, from across the political spectrum, have rallied around the intellectual argument for unprecedented levels of social security support.
- So the government’s “support by stealth” strategy is even more mystifying.
- Impact of lockdown on migrant labour: The magnitude of the crisis unleashed for migrant labour could have been avoided with a little forethought.
- What could have been done? Early announcement of cash transfers, shelter and food availability, would have obviated the need for migration.
Opacity on the health infrastructure side
- Issue of testing: Opacity is often a consequence of scarcity. And nowhere is this more manifest than in our discussion of testing.
- Underutilisation of capacity: Everyone understands that India has the scarce testing capacity, though it seems it is also under-utilising what it has.
- No clear testing strategy: The government is procuring more testing kits. But what is worrying is that there seems to be no publicly articulated statement of what exactly our testing strategy is, given the scarce resources.
- But there is still no sense of how we plan to put a testing strategy in place (not just numbers of tests, but where can they be optimally deployed), that will minimise the need for future lockdowns.
- What objectives is it trying to meet? There is more than a whiff of suspicion that there is a view that more testing might spread more panic.
- Or it might put more pressure on the health care system than it can handle.
- India has never understood that health expenditure is not an expenditure; it is an investment.
- Building up of health infrastructure: The success of the lockdown strategy is premised on an unprecedentedly vigorous building up of health infrastructure to fight the pandemic.
- There is a commitment by the Centre to infuse an extra Rs 15,000 crore in this sector. Some steps are being taken in building up capabilities, including ramping up production of ventilators and masks.
- Need for warlike mobilisation: This is an area where India needs almost a warlike mobilisation, to make sure we have enough testing, tracking, frontline workers, logistics and equipment in place to make sure that the duration of a lockdown is minimised or a repeat is not necessary.
- The creation of this kind of infrastructure will pay huge dividends even in non-pandemic times.
Conclusion
The prime minister is constantly asking the citizens to mobilise, and most of them respond. But it about time the state mobilises: On an economic stimulus that is truly meaningful and health infrastructure push that inspires confidence.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Banking rates and markets instrument.
Mains level: Paper 3- Steps taken by the RBI to revive growth and provide stability to economy.
Context
The RBI’s Governor’s ‘bazooka’ announcement earlier today has seen the usually conservative institution and its head pull out the big guns in word and action.
Four steps taken by the RBI
- One, increase the liquidity in the system.
- Two, make sure the lower policy rate is transmitted. Steps one and two are linked.
- Three, give a three-month window for a payback on all term loans.
- Four, take steps to reduce volatility and provide stability.
- Big cut in repo rate: He announced a big cut in the repo rate by 75 basis points (100 basis points make a per cent, so three-quarters of a percentage point) to 4.4%.
- What is the repo rate? Repo rate is the rate at which the banks borrow from the RBI. Banks give ‘eligible securities’ they hold for cash that RBI gives as an overnight loan.
- Banks pay the repo rate as interest for this borrowing.
First two steps of the RBI: Increasing liquidity and ensuring policy rate transmission
- Why lower repo rate matters? When the repo rate is high, banks find it costly to borrow and in turn raise the price of loans to their borrowers.
- Reducing interest for the system: A low repo rate has the overall effect of reducing interest rates for the system. Lower rates make it easier for entrepreneurs to take loans for working capital and for households for homes, vehicles and so on.
- Issue of policy rate transmission: Previous rate cuts have not been ‘transmitted’ by the banks who have not reduced lending rates and have preferred to keep money with the RBI at the ‘reverse repo rate’.
- What is reverse repo rate? This is the rate at which banks lend to the RBI.
How RBI is ensuring transmission now?
- The RBI has now reduced the reverse repo rate by 90 basis points to 4%.
- This cut in reverse rape sharper than the one on the repo rate to encourage banks to borrow from the RBI rather than lend to it.
- How reverse repo rate matters? Banks have preferred to deposit money with the RBI rather than lend it out with an average daily amount of ₹3 trillion being kept with the RBI.
- A reduction of the reverse repo to 4% makes it unattractive to banks to park it with the RBI and banks will be nudged to lend.
- Why bank lending matters for business? Bank lending provides the needed oxygen to businesses for their working capital and longer-term loans.
- Read this as a measure to help banks take the decision to lend rather than play it safe by keeping money with the RBI.
How lock-down slows down the economy?
- Rush to safety for money: If people are in a lock-down, the wheels of the economy begin to grind down and there is a rush to safety for money in the system.
- Freezing of the markets market: Investors begin to redeem their shares, bonds and mutual funds. These redemptions cause a fire sale of assets. Finally, when there are no buyers, markets begin to freeze.
What are the measures taken by RBI to stabilise the market?
- To keep the wheels of the markets well-oiled with cash, the RBI has made ₹3.74 trillion available. This it has done using four weapons.
- The first measure: It has used targeted long-term repo operations.
- RBI will lend money to banks (a total of ₹1 trillion) that can be invested in bonds and other forms of lending instruments.
- What is a hold-to-maturity way? Under the hold-to-maturity way, the portfolio is valued not on the market price but on what the price should be given the rate of interest of the bond, the holding period and the rating of the bond.
- Basically, it allows trades to happen at a price that is not confused with the current pandemic in the market.
- The second measure: The RBI reduced the cash reserve ratio (CRR) by a full percentage point down to 3% for a year.
- The CRR is the percentage of demand and time deposits banks have to keep with the RBI.
- Why CRR and not SLR was reduced? There is another 18.25% of deposits that is also not used for lending under the Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR), further reducing the money banks have to lend.
- RBI has reduced the CRR to 3%, freeing up ₹1.37 trillion for banks to lend. CRR has been chosen rather than SLR because this increases ‘primary liquidity’ with the banks a bit better.
- Not only is there CRR rate down, banks now need to maintain 80% of the limit on a daily basis instead of 90% till June 26, 2020.
- The third measure: ₹1.37 trillion will be made available under the emergency lending window called the marginal standing facility (MSF).
- Banks will now be able to borrow 3% of their deposits under this window, up from the current 2%. Basically, RBI is willing to lend more than before.
- How much more? ₹1.37 trillion under this window.
The third step of the RBI: Regulatory forbearance
The fourth step of the RBI: Measures to reduce volatility in the exchange rate
- Fourth is a measure to reduce the volatility of the price of the rupee in international markets by allowing banks to deal in off-shore non-deliverable rupee derivative markets.
- It looks like reform using the crisis to bring about this long-awaited change.
Conclusion
We don’t know if measures taken by the RBI and the government are enough. But what is comforting is that the government and the RBI are working in tandem to deal with this giant killer of a virus.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- Learning from the experience of South Korea in designing the policies to deal with coronavirus.
Context
How this coronavirus pandemic threat will pan out no one knows but what we do know is that the intensity of the challenge and its impact on our well-being will depend greatly on how we reach out to ordinary people, and the policies we implement.
Historical perspective and comparison
- Compared to the fatality numbers of some earlier pandemics, such as the Asian flu, 1957-58 (1.1 million dead) and Hong Kong Flu, 1968 (2 million dead), the fatality numbers of the current coronavirus pandemic are, as yet, nowhere near.
- One of the most comprehensive studies on the pandemic, by the Imperial College of London, shows that the “case fatality rate”, or fatality among those who get coronavirus is 0.9 per cent — this means a 99.1 per cent survival rate among the people who get it.
- What makes this pandemic special is that it is happening in the age of digital connectivity and greater scientific knowledge than we have ever had.
- We can inform people quickly and take big steps to contain it.
- But this also has a danger we have never faced.
- Policy actions can have a mega backlash on the economy.
- We are in uncharted territory — never before have we taken the kind of collective action against a pandemic as we are doing now.
Time to collectively confront our common humanitarian challenge
- Using the experience of South Korea: There is some evidence from history, and from the country that has been the most successful in dealing with this pandemic —South Korea.
- The country’s success has saved lives, protected the economy from undue damage, boosted the popularity of the Korean President Moon Jae-In across political divides and raised the global standing of South Korea.
- France’s President Emmanuel Macron and Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Lofven have consulted Moon Jae-In for advice.
- We have some evidence and estimates about the kind of damage this pandemic can do.
- China’s industrial production in January-February 2020 declined by 5 per cent compared to a year ago.
- Goldman Sachs has estimated that the US’s GDP growth could decline 24 per cent for the second quarter this year.
- Data are coming in on recent US unemployment claims climbing by 30 per cent.
- This is clearly time to put political differences aside, and collectively confront our common humanitarian challenge.
Designing policy to deal with the pandemic
- Economic implications: In designing policy, it is important to realise that all interventions to contain the pandemic have economic implications.
- Some people react to this by saying that our first priority is to save lives, not the economy. This is a mistake. The two are not separate matters.
- A poorly-executed policy can damage the economy and this can end up taking more lives than the original problem.
- Examples of policy doing damage to lives: We have examples of the damage policies can do from history. In 1958, Mao Zedong initiated the Great Leap Forward to boost China’s production. This unleashed the biggest famine in modern times, which resulted in 20 to 40 million deaths.
- The Bengal Famine of 1943 occurred with no decline in food production but there were disruptions in supply chains from the farms to those who needed food.
- The death toll was two to three million. Such evidence from the past warns us that policies not designed well can cause more deaths than the pandemic itself.
Three lessons from South Korea
- We already have three lessons from Korea, which are being widely discussed in newspapers and the media around the world.
- First, you need strong leadership.
- Second, it is critically important to have trust between society and government. There is only that much you can do if people do not cooperate.
- Third, the need is for nuanced policies, with the government having the courage to make course correction as it goes along.
Way forward
- First, trust can be a casualty with the lockdown. There are reports of the police wielding the baton too quickly on ordinary vendors, small grocers and sellers. They need to explain to people so that they begin to actually cooperate, instead of complying only when under observation. That is the key difference between a trusting society and a trustless one.
- The government cannot be a substitute for the private firms: To believe that small traders and private firms can be substituted by the government is the mistake Communist China made in the 1960s and 1970s, before the arrival of Deng Xiaoping.
- An example of the importance of specialised knowledge — this applies to the US as well — pertains to the role of cash grants to the poor. Such grants work well in normal times but may need to be supplemented with the direct support of food and medical services.
Conclusion
Some say that the Korea analogy is of no use to us because it is a relatively small country. It is true that everything will not apply here. But on the other hand, Korea and Hubei province of China are very comparable. Korea’s population is 52 million, Hubei’s is 58 million. The number of people who died of the virus in Korea is 126. The figure for Hubei is 3,160. Korea, of course, had the follower’s advantage since the virus struck there later. But we too have that advantage.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 3- What are the essential reforms essential for reshaping the India's economy.
Context
The fragility of the global economy has been exposed twice within the last two decades. In 2008, the collapse of a financial services firm in the US triggered a global financial meltdown. In 2020, the emergence of a novel virus in a food market in Wuhan has done it again.
The global economy and system theory
- Systems theory: It that systems take various forms. Broadly speaking, there are three types of systems-1. Chaotic systems. 2. Engineered Systems, and 3. Complex self-adaptive systems.
- As the weather in a storm, chaotic systems are unpredictable and uncontrollable.
- The global economy is behaving like a chaotic system.
- Engineered systems, on the other hand, can be controlled quite tightly, like machines.
- However, they are dull. A nuclear power plant is a well-engineered system. We would want it to do just what it is supposed to and not produce any surprises.
- In contrast to these systems is the design of nature. It is a complex self-adaptive system. It produces myriad innovations. It evolves. Yet, its fundamental stability is very reassuring.
- The realisation that mankind’s technologies and engineering marvels are disrupting nature’s stability, has raised alarms about the architecture of global economic governance.
- More about self-adaptive systems: The architecture of complex self-adaptive systems is formed by essential design principles. One is “permeable boundaries”.
- The many parts of a complex self-adaptive system have permeable boundaries between themselves. Each part has its integrity. The parts exchange information and energy across their boundaries as required.
- When there are no boundaries within, or they are too weak, an accident at one end will soon sink the whole ship.
Consequences of boundarylessness within the global financial system
- The drive for boundarylessness within the global financial system since the 1990s caused the sloshing around of contagion during the global financial crisis in 2008.
- Whereas global economic growth has undoubtedly been enabled by global supply chains, the vulnerability of economies everywhere to their disruption has become painfully evident with the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Complex adaptive systems exhibit “fractal-like” shapes. Their parts are complex, combining the same diverse energies that permeate across the whole.
- Social forces, economic forces, and environmental forces combine within all countries, and in parts within countries too, albeit in different ways.
- Though the parts are similar to each other, they are not the same. Therefore, the same solutions will not fit all.
- An insight from systems theory is that global systemic problems such as climate change, persistent economic inequality, among others, will require local systems solutions.
Six reforms for reshaping Indian economy
- Stress test: Crises create stress tests for the health of systems. The financial crisis of 2008 exposed the fragility of an inter-connected and under-regulated financial system.
- The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the architectural weaknesses in the global economy.
- Instead of worrying too much about the reversal of globalisation, national leaders should now focus on the well-being of their citizens and the health of their own economies.
- Six reforms are essential for reshaping the Indian economy.
- First, focus on the provision of universal social security, rather than on the misdirected demand for even more “flexibility” in labour laws
- Second, respect the “informal” sector which provides the majority of Indians with opportunities to earn incomes, and give it more strength. It is also a great source for practical innovations and widespread entrepreneurship.
- Third, change the economic paradigm from “trickle-down” to “build up”. Build the internal engine of growth of India’s economy by increasing incomes of India’s citizens.
- Fourth, strengthen public health services. Medical tourism may put India’s private hospitals on the global map. However, they are not the solution to India’s huge health problems.
- Fifth, reform and strengthen the public education system. It will contribute greatly to creating a level playing field for all children.
- Sixth, strengthen local governance in India’s towns and districts to develop and implement local systems solutions. The well-being of Indian citizens will be improved, and India’s economy will be more resilient too.
Conclusion
- All governments are asking their citizens to increase “social distancing” between themselves to prevent the spread of a health contagion. It would be wise for countries to maintain sufficient “economic distancing” amongst themselves too. They should mind the health of their own economies. Thereby, they will improve the health of the global economy too.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 3- Measures to mitigate the impact of steps taken to deal with the coronavirus on Indian economy.
Context
There are going to be the economic impact of the actions designed to combat the virus. The two major tools that the government has available before it are monetary policy and fiscal actions.
Impact of virus and additional slowdown
- The impact of the coronavirus pandemic is now felt by almost every country.
- First, there are the health effects of the virus.
- Second is the economic impact of the various actions that have to be taken to combat the virus.
- The world is experiencing an additional slowdown on top of the contracting tendencies already present and India is no exception.
- The economic impact on India can be traced through four channels: external demand; domestic demand; supply disruptions, and financial market disturbances.
Impact on export
- As the economies of the developed countries slow down (some people are even talking of recession), their demand for imports of goods will go down.
- This lower demand will affect our exports which are even now not doing well.
- In fact, after six months of negative growth, it was only in January that Indian exports showed positive growth.
- The extent of decline will depend on how severely the other economies are affected. Not only merchandise exports but also service exports will suffer.
- Besides these, the IT industry, travel, transport and hotel industries will be affected.
Oil price factor
- The only redeeming feature in the external sector is the fall in oil prices.
- India’s oil import bill will come down substantially.
- But this will affect adversely the oil-exporting countries which absorb Indian labour. Remittances may slow down.
Supply disruption
- To ward off the spread of the coronavirus, the government has declared a lockdown of the country.
- As passengers travel less, the transportation industry, road, rail and air, is cutting down schedules, sometimes drastically.
- This will affect in turn several other sectors closely related to them. The laying off of non-permanent employees has already started.
- As people, in general, buy less, shops stock less, which in turn affects production.
- Perhaps retail units will be first to be affected and they will, in turn, transmit this to the production units.
- One is unable to make an estimate of the reduction in economic activity at this point.
- If the situation is not reversed soon, there can be a serious decline in the growth rate during 2020-21.
- Supply disruptions can occur because of the inability to import or procure inputs.
- The break in supply chains can be severe. It is estimated that nearly 60% of our imports are in the category of ‘intermediate goods’.
- Imports from countries which are affected by the virus can be a source of concern.
- The domestic supply chain can also be affected as the inter-State movement of goods has also slowed down.
Financial market issue
- Financial markets are the ones which respond quickly and irrationally to a pandemic such as the coronavirus pandemic. The entire reaction is based on fear.
- The stock market in India has collapsed. The indices are at a three-year low.
- Foreign Portfolio Investors have shown great nervousness and the safe haven doctrine operates.
- In this process, the value of the rupee in terms of the dollar has also fallen.
- The stock market decline has a wealth effect and will have an impact on the behaviour of particularly high wealth holders.
- How does the government deal with this sudden decline in economic activity which has come at a time when the economy is not doing well? The two major tools that are available are monetary policy and fiscal actions.
Two major tools with government- Monetary Policy and Fiscal Action
- Monetary policy: In a situation like this can only act to stimulate demand by a greater push of liquidity and credit.
- The policy rate has already been brought down by 135 basis points over the last several months. There is obviously scope for further reduction.
- But our own history, as well as the experience of other countries, clearly show that beyond a point, a reduction in interest rates does not work.
- It is the environment of the overall economy that counts. Credit may be available. But there may not be takers.
- Any substantial reduction of policy rate can also affect savers. Interest is a double-edged sword.
- What the RBI needs to do? IT needs to go beyond cutting the policy rate.
- A certain amount of regulatory forbearance is required to make the banks lend.
- Even commercial banks on their own will have to think in terms of modifying norms they use for inventory holding by production units.
- Repayments to banks can be delayed and the authorities must be willing to relax the rules.
- Any relaxation of rules regarding the recognition of non-performing assets has to be across the entire business sector.
- The authorities must be ready to tighten the rules as soon as the situation improves. This is a temporary relaxation and must be seen as such by banks and borrowers.
- Fiscal Policy: Fiscal actions have a major role to play. Once again, the ability to play a big role is constrained by the fact that the fiscal position of the government of India is already difficult.
- Even without the pandemic, the fiscal deficit of the Central government will turn out to be higher than that indicated in the budgets for 2019-20 and 2020-21.
- Revenues are likely to go down further because of the virus-related slowdown in economic activity.
- In this context, the ability to undertake big-ticket expenditures is
- But there are some ‘musts’. The virus has to be fought and brought down. All expenditures to test and to take care of patients must be incurred.
- Now that private hospitals are allowed to test, the cost of the people going to private hospitals must also be met by the government.
- The involvement of private hospitals has become necessary. It is mentioned that a test costs ₹4,500. The total cost can be substantial if the numbers to be tested run in the thousands and more.
- This may sound exaggerated. But we must be prepared so that we avoid the tragedy of Italy.
- Therefore, the first priority is to mobilise adequate resources to meet all health-related expenditures which includes the supply of accessories such as masks, sanitisers and materials for tests.
- The challenge is not only fiscal but also organisational.
Mitigating the impact on the job sector
- Serious concerns have been expressed about people who have been thrown out of employment. These are mostly daily-wage earners and non-permanent/temporary employees.
- In fact, some of the migrant labour have gone back to home States. We must appeal to the business units to keep even non-permanent workers on their rolls and provide them with a minimal income.
- Some relief can be thought of by the government for such business units even though this can be misused.
- However, in general, in the case of sectors such as hospitality and travel, the government can extend relief through deferment of payments of dues to the government.
- Issues in making cash transfer universal: There is talk of providing cash transfer to individuals. There is already a programme for rural farmers with all the limitations.
- For a system of cash transfer to be workable, it has to be universal.
- At this moment when all the energies of the government are required to combat the virus, to institute a system of universal cash transfer will be a diversion of efforts.
- The burden on the government will depend upon the quantum of per capita cash transfer and the length of the period.
- The government should advise all business units not to retrench workers and provide some relief to them to maintain the workers.
- A supplemental income scheme for all the poor can be thought of once the immediate problem is resolved.
- Provision of food and other essentials must be made available to the affected as is done at the time of floods or drought. States must take the initiative.
Conclusion
The fiscal deficit is bound to go up substantially. The higher borrowing programme will need the support of the RBI if the interest rate is to be kept low. The monetisation of the deficit is inevitable. The strong injection of liquidity will store up problems for the next year. Inflation can flare-up. The government needs to be mindful of this. All the same, the government must not stint and go out in a massive way to combat the virus. This is the government’s first priority.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 3- Application of digitalisation in healthcare and judiciary.
Context
The Covid-19 pandemic gives us a chance to re-evaluate the worth of two major initiatives of the government: demonetization and digitization.
Importance of digitalisation in pandemic
- The importance of digitization in a pandemic cannot be exaggerated when we are repeatedly told to maintain social distance and work from home in order to avoid infection.
- Consider how nigh impossible it would be to avoid contact with retail cashiers and point-of-sale (PoS) terminals if we were to use credit cards and cash to pay for our daily necessities.
- Today, most bill payments have moved online and barring older people, who may prefer to pay their electricity bills at physical counters, digitization is delivering in spades.
- But digitization is not just about payments and financial transactions. Consider what all will happen as the current lockdown persists across the country.
Application in the judiciary
- Courts are beginning to use video-conferencing to conduct hearings. It is ironic that something that should have been done years ago to hasten hearings is now being done to prevent infections.
- India’s judiciary has been resisting technology for as long as one can remember.
- Witnesses do not have to drag themselves to court every day; they can video-record their statements in advance, and submit themselves to questioning through Skype or other such video-calling apps.
- When the entire case is recorded, the possibility of judges conducting trials in an unfair way gets substantially reduced, for those at the receiving end of judicial injustice can seek retrials based on video recordings.
- These recordings will also enable the higher judiciary to figure out who its good judges are, and who adopts dilatory tactics and frequent adjournments, delaying justice.
- At some point, a judicial appointments commission will have video records of all judges shortlisted for promotions. They will thus know whom to recommend for elevation and whom to sideline. Corruption is also likely to come down.
Application in the healthcare sector
- In the current Covid-19 crisis, doctors and nurses are putting themselves at huge risk, and so are those handling millions of samples of throat swabs that need to be analysed for the virus
- Applications: Remote patient examinations, analysis of symptoms with the help of databases and algorithms, and even the basic task of taking down a new patient’s medical history can all be done remotely through a digital app or interface.
- The doctor will know even before he has met the patient what could be wrong, something she only has to confirm after interacting with the patient.
- India is spending humongous amounts of money, and so are to-be doctors, to master medical knowledge that doubles every 75 days. In short, by the time your average MBBS doctor completes his or her degree, much of that knowledge could be outdated.
- He or she has to use technology to update himself or herself, and also rely on databases and artificial intelligence to deliver healthcare without the risk of misdiagnosis.
- India may be spending too much on training doctors at a cost of millions of rupees per head when a lot of that money could have been spent on technology to deliver competent and lower-cost healthcare.
Conclusion
If we just stop to think where we would have been in this pandemic but for digital technology, we would recognize the importance of going digital. It should make us think of how to convert the Covid-19 disruption into an agenda that brings us up to technological speed in various spheres of human activity.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 3- Vaccine development and trials.
Context
The world is dealing with an unprecedented and unimaginably serious crisis. Therefore, the speed of vaccine development is crucial.
Speeding up the vaccine development
- Availability of rationale and information: The race for developing an anti-COVID-19 vaccine has begun. Reasonable scientific rationale and the information needed for vaccine development are available to all stakeholders in academia and industry.
- Vaccine platforms: A large number of candidate vaccines based on different vaccine platforms, including delivering the virus genetic materials (RNA, DNA) or using synthetic biology to produce key viral proteins, have already been developed.
- Phase-I safety trials of an experimental vaccine, jointly developed by scientists at the National Institute of Health and at Moderna, a biotechnology company, has already been administered to healthy volunteers for its safety and immunogenicity.
- The speed with which the experimental vaccine has entered safety trials is unprecedented.
- Another vaccine jointly developed by China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences and CanSino Biologics has reportedly been cleared for early-stage clinical trials.
- Development in India: The Serum Institute of India has also recently announced its readiness to start safety trials following animal experiments.
- According to a World Health Organization (WHO) report, more than 20 vaccine candidates are in advanced stages of development and will be ready for Phase-I safety trials.
- However, it is also clear that it will not be possible to roll-out any efficacious vaccine for at least another year.
Questions that need to be answered
- While these developments are encouraging, several questions will need to be answered for this vaccine development to move further.
- Triggering immune response safely: Although it is quite evident that humans mount a strong immune response and clear the viral load, the nature of the immune response and how to trigger it safely through vaccination will be key questions to address.
- Duration of the acquired immunity: How long the acquired immunity in humans will last is another important question to be asked before experimental vaccines move forward.
- We will need to know this because if the immunity is transient, then humans will be susceptible to reinfections.
- Ensuring no disease enhancement: Before moving to Phase-II trials in a large number of healthy volunteers, we also have to ensure that the immune response induced by vaccination does not lead to any disease enhancement.
Repurposing the already available drugs
- Therapeutic interventions, not only for curing severe cases of the disease but also for protecting all front-line healthcare workers, are urgently needed.
- Using already approved drugs: Since developing new drugs is a complex and lengthy process, scientists and pharmaceutical companies have rushed to investigate and use drugs that have already been approved by regulatory authorities.
- Using available molecular and structural biology information on the virus, a group of scientists have analysed all interactions of the viral proteins with human proteins that are crucial for the virus to enter human cells and use the host cell machinery to rapidly reproduce itself.
- Of the nearly 70 short-listed molecules that may interrupt these key interactions, 24 happen to be already approved drugs which can now be tested in laboratory animal models as well as humans.
- However, the re-purposing of several drugs, alone or in combinations to treat COVID-19 patients, have already been reported.
- More confusion than hope: There are many success stories of curing patients of COVID-19 doing the rounds in different parts of the world, but these have managed to create more confusion than hope.
- Without any appropriate controls, careful dosing and safety concerns, such small experiments can only do more harm than good.
Controlled randomised trials
- Given the urgency of finding a cure, it is absolutely necessary to find out unequivocally what works well and what does not. For that conducting carefully controlled randomised trials is the only way to go.
- In a welcome move, the WHO has announced clinical trials called the ‘Solidarity Project’.
- Under this project four drugs or drug, combinations will be tested in many countries around the world.
- These candidates include the anti-Ebola drug, Remdesivir, Chloroquine, anti-HIV drugs, and the Ritonavir/Lopinavir combination, with or without Interferon-beta.
- The European counterpart of the trial, Discovery, will conduct these trials in countries including France, Spain, Germany and the U.K.
- The pharma company Roche has also decided to initiate large, randomised Phase-III trials of its arthritis drug Actemra for its safety and efficacy in adult patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia.
- It is complex and tedious to conduct randomised, large multi-centric trials.
- Quickly getting all the stakeholders together is laudable and underscores the notion that everyone needs to fight the deadly virus together. Hopefully, these trials will lead to tangible drug therapies against COVID-19.
Conclusion
It is most heartening to see scientists in academia and industrial partners coming together to fight a monumental public health crisis. The battle between pathogens and humans will continue but let us hope that we win the present one sooner than later.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- China's growing influence at UN agencies and how it matters for Indian and the world.
Context
The WHO leadership, especially its Director-General, has been accused of serving China’s interests rather than preparing the world against the spread of the virus.
What is the basis of accusations?
- The first basis for these charges is the WHO’s endorsement of the Chinese claim in mid-January that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus.
- Second, consistent support for Beijing’s handling of the crisis.
- Third, WHO’s criticism of other nations for imposing travel restrictions to and from China.
- Critics also believe the WHO lulled the world into complacence by delaying the decision on calling it a global emergency.
The new geopolitics of multilateralism
- Whatever the merits of the above arguments, they point to the new geopolitics of multilateralism,
- It also disproves the assumptions in both the West and India on China’s role in the UN.
- It also underlines Beijing’s success in the leveraging of international organisations for its national advantage.
- Nations working together against the trans-national threat: On the face of it, the sentiment that nations must work together against common trans-national threats is an eminently sensible one. But it does not easily translate into concrete actions.
- Example of failure to act against a common threat: Take climate change. Attempts at developing collective solutions to the problem over the last three decades have foundered.
- Most leaders agree on the problem and the solutions but are not willing to accept the framework — either the domestic or international — for distributing the costs associated with the solutions.
- The US-China rivalry angle to the coronavirus outbreak: The problem of the cost-benefit distribution is compounded by great power rivalries. The coronavirus has shown up at a moment of deepening tensions between the US and China.
- The grave collective challenge that the virus constitutes has only sharpened the conflict.
- The blame game between the two: The US blames Beijing for letting this virus become a global monster and Beijing is doing all it can to deny that the virus came out of China.
How the relationship between China and WHO has transformed over the years?
- WHO’s actions in the past: Nearly two decades ago, during the SARS crisis, WHO was at the front and centre of pressing China to come clean on the unfolding pandemic.
- In 2003, it had issued the organisation’s first travel advisory ever on travel to and from the epicentre of the pandemic in southern China.
- As the SARS crisis escalated, Beijing’s traditional arguments about the centrality of state sovereignty yielded place to a new policy of working with the WHO and taking proactive steps to reassure neighbours in South East Asia.
- Reasons for change in WHO’s stance: Some attribute the turnaround in the relationship between Beijing and WHO to China’s growing financial contributions.
- China’s efforts to expand clout: Observers of the UN point to something more fundamental — a conscious and consequential Chinese effort to expand its clout in the multilateral system.
- China, which was admitted to the UN system in the 1970s, was focused on finding its way in the 1980s, cautiously raised its profile in the 1990s, took on some political initiatives at the turn of the millennium and seized the leadership in the last few years.
How India and the West are reacting to China’s rise?
- Unprepared to deal with China’s rise at UN: Neither the West nor India have been prepared to deal with the impact of China’s rise on the UN system.
- The US and its allies bet that China will be a “responsible stakeholder”. Put another way, they hoped that China will play by the rules set by the West.
- China’s ambitions: China, of course, wants to set its own rules. Only the political innocents will be shocked by China’s natural ambition.
- India’s past alignment with China: India, which considered US dominance over the international institutions in the 1990s as a major threat, chose to align with China in promoting a “multipolar world”.
- Delhi convinced itself that despite differences over the boundary, Pakistan and other issues, there is huge room for cooperation with China.
- Replacing the US as the dominant force: To their chagrin, the West and India are being compelled to respond to a very different environment at the UN. China wants to replace America as the dominant force in the UN.
- The US is now fighting back. Last month, Washington went all out to defeat the Chinese candidate for the leadership of an obscure UN agency called the World Intellectual Property Organisation.
Implications of China’s rise for India
- Chinese hegemony vs. American primacy: Delhi discovered that Chinese global hegemony could be a lot more problematic than American primacy.
- After all, it is China that complicates India’s plans for membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, protects Pakistan against international pressures on cross-border terrorism, and relentlessly pushes the UN Security Council to take up the Kashmir question.
- India now turns to the US and its allies to pursue some of its interests in the UN.
- Multilateralism not an end in itself: Political ironies apart, if there is one lesson that India could learn from China’s experience with WHO and the UN, it is that multilateralism is not an end in itself for major powers.
- It is an important means to secure one’s national interest and shape the international environment.
- As a nation battered by the Cultural Revolution, China used international cooperation and global institutions to rebuild itself in the last decades of the 20th century.
- Ready to reorder global governance: Having developed its economy and advanced its scientific and technological base, China is now ready to reorder global governance and become a rule-maker.
- The effects are visible in the arena of global health.
- China’s expanding global engagement with the WHO, its substantive international health assistance programmes, and an impressive domestic health technology sector are poised to boost China’s ambition to build a “Global Silk Road for Health’.
Conclusion
On its part, Delhi needs to intensify the recalibration of India’s multilateralism, rewrite its diplomatic lexicon at the UN, and build new political coalitions that will simultaneously contribute to India’s internal modernisation and enhance its international influence. The corona crisis is a good moment to start writing a new script for India’s own health diplomacy.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Mains level: Paper 3- Economic policy changes to mitigate the impact of slowdown on the vulnerable.
Context
India must use the windfall from oil to provide assistance to the most vulnerable to mitigate the impact due to COIVD-19 outbreak.
Estimates of impact
- Impact on major economies: Minus 40 per cent, -30 per cent, -22 per cent, and -14 per cent. These are the estimated impacts (at an annualised rate) on the quarterly growth rates of China, the UK, Eurozone, and the US because of the Covid-19 virus.
- Even excluding China and those that are closely tied to its supply chain — Korea and Taiwan — emerging markets (EM) are expected to go into recession in the first half of 2020, with the second quarter taking the biggest hit at over an 8 per cent quarterly decline.
- Impact on India: India will not be spared this growth shock. In fact, the economic impact could be deeper and longer in emerging markets where the capacity of public health systems is limited at the best of times.
Prospects of recovery
- Sudden stop to economic activity: We also know from the experiences of the countries already infected that the way to control the spread of the virus is through aggressive containment and social distancing that inevitably brings economic activity to a sudden stop.
- There doesn’t seem to be a middle path. We also know that unlike natural catastrophes like earthquakes, capital stock is not destroyed by the virus.
- Sharp recovery and conditions: Once the containment period is over and social interaction normalises, there is every reason to believe that activity can recover very sharply.
- Unless the containment period is long because of capacity constraints in the healthcare system which could turn supply chain disruptions into a long-term problem, or the credit stress created by the lack of earning by households and firms during the sudden stop stymies the recovery.
India needs to brace itself
- Unfortunately, India, where the virus still appears to be in the early stage, needs to brace for such a sudden stop.
- The lockdown could be for an extended period given the already stretched public health system.
- Impact on urban economy: The swathe of the economy that depends on social interaction — retail sales, entertainment, restaurants, and importantly construction and manufacturing — is very large.
- Even if one believes that rural areas with relatively low population densities will not be affected much, the impact on urban economic activity could be very large.
Role of economic policy
- What is the role of economic policy in such circumstances? It needs to “bridge the gap” between the brutal downturn and the eventual recovery.
- While public health policies force a sudden stop in the economy to save lives, economic policies need to ensure that the impact from the shutdown is cushioned, incomes of households and firms supported, credit stress is contained, and the recovery is not hamstrung by policy headwinds.
- This requires policy support to be operated on various fronts.
- Role of the Central bank: Central banks not only need to cut rates but also need to provide adequate liquidity and extend regulatory forbearance to prevent credit stress and non-performing loans from clogging up the already strained financial system when the economy starts to recover.
- Role of fiscal policy: The role of fiscal policy is even larger, from direct and indirect tax cuts or postponement to targeted credit support for sectors that are likely to be most affected such as airlines and retail trade.
- Support to the vulnerable: The key is income support to the most vulnerable: From daily wage earners to SMEs (small and medium enterprises).
- Using JAM trinity for cash transfer: It is here that the government’s efforts over the last five years make India one of the best-placed economies to deliver such cash transfers.
- Since 2015, substantial time, effort, and resources have been expended to establish Jan Dhan (bank accounts), Aadhaar and mobile banking (JAM), and Mudra, the programme that dispenses loans to SMEs.
- The objective of JAM and Mudra is to use Aadhaar as a way of accurately identifying beneficiaries and use mobile banking to digitally and seamlessly transfer cash/subsidies directly to households’ bank accounts and provide loans to SMEs without any leakages.
- According to government reports, the total number of Jan Dhan accounts stand at around 380 million and 59 million MUDRA loans were sanctioned last year.
- For a country with a population of 1.3 billion and about 63 million SMEs, even if there are duplicate accounts, JAM and Mudra should be able to cover almost all households and SMEs.
- With Aadhaar accurately targeting beneficiaries, leakages should be minimised. If there ever was a time that India needed JAM and Mudra it is now.
Issue of fiscal space and solution
- Some will argue that India doesn’t have the fiscal space. But it does.
- Use oil windfall: In the last month or so, the crude oil price has dropped from around $60/bbl to around $30 and is likely to stay at this level given the breakdown in agreement among oil-producing countries and the massive collapse in global demand.
- If the government simply taxed the oil windfall by raising excise duties, as it did during the 2014-15 oil price collapse, it could potentially raise almost 1 per cent of GDP or a staggering Rs 2.25 trillion.
- If 50 million households have to be provided assistance because of the shutdown, it comes to about Rs 14,000 per month for three months or about Rs 24,000 a month to half of the 63 million SMEs.
- And this without even having to increase this year’s budgeted deficit.
Conclusion
The government might have other uses for the oil windfall. But if India is forced into lockdown, the economic costs will be very large and the recovery will crucially depend on whether the pilot-light of the economy is kept lit through this period. This critically requires income transfers to vulnerable households and SMEs. India cannot complain that it does not have the fiscal space or the infrastructure to provide it.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NM-QTA
Mains level: Paper 3- Research on Quantum technology and its applications in India.
Context
With the Budget announcement providing direction for the development in quantum technology, the stakeholders need to roll-out the national mission quickly.
Pushing India into second quantum revolution
- Budgetary allocation for NM-QTA: In the Budget 2020 speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made a welcome announcement for Indian science — over the next five years she proposed spending ₹8,000 crores (~ $1.2 billion) on a National Mission on Quantum Technologies and Applications.
- This promises to catapult India into the midst of the second quantum revolution, a major scientific effort that is being pursued by the United States, Europe, China and others.
Timeline of the development of Quantum Mechanics
- Science to describe nature on atomic-scale: Quantum mechanics was developed in the early 20th century to describe nature in the small — at the scale of atoms and elementary particles.
- Foundation for understanding: For over a century it has provided the foundations of our understanding of the physical world, including the interaction of light and matter.
- It also led to ubiquitous inventions such as lasers and semiconductor transistors.
- Despite a century of research, the quantum world still remains mysterious and far removed from our experiences based on everyday life.
- Second revolution: A second revolution is currently underway with the goal of putting our growing understanding of these mysteries to use by actually controlling nature and harnessing the benefits of the weird and wondrous properties of quantum mechanics.
- Challenge of experimental realisation: One of the most striking of these is the tremendous computing power of quantum computers, whose actual experimental realisation is one of the great challenges of our times.
- Quantum supremacy: The announcement by Google, in October 2019, where they claimed to have demonstrated the so-called “quantum supremacy”, is one of the first steps towards this goal.
Applications and challenges
- Applications: Besides computing, exploring the quantum world promises other dramatic applications including the creation of novel materials, enhanced metrology, secure communication, to name just a few.
- Some of these are already around the corner.
- Application in communication: China recently demonstrated secure quantum communication links between terrestrial stations and satellites.
- Applications in cryptography: Computer scientists are working towards deploying schemes for post-quantum cryptography — clever schemes by which existing computers can keep communication secure even against quantum computers of the future.
- Exploring fundamental questions: Beyond these applications, some of the deepest foundational questions in physics and computer science are being driven by quantum information science. This includes subjects such as quantum gravity and black holes.
- The need for collaboration: Pursuing these challenges will require unprecedented collaboration between physicists (both experimentalists and theorists), computer scientists, material scientists and engineers.
- Challenges on the experimental front: On the experimental front, the challenge lies in harnessing the weird and wonderful properties of quantum superposition and entanglement in a highly controlled manner by building a system composed of carefully designed building blocks called quantum bits or qubits.
- These qubits tend to be very fragile and lose their “quantumness” if not controlled properly, and a careful choice of materials, design and engineering is required to get them to work.
- Challenges on the theoretical front: On the theoretical front lies the challenge of creating the algorithms and applications for quantum computers.
- These projects will also place new demands on classical control hardware as well as software platforms.
Where India stands
- India late in starting work on technology: Globally, research in this area is about two decades old, but in India, serious experimental work has been underway for only about five years, and in a handful of locations.
- What are the constraints on Indian progress in this field? So far we have been plagued by a lack of sufficient resources, high-quality manpower, timeliness and flexibility.
- Resource and quality manpower problem: The new announcement in the Budget would greatly help fix the resource problem but high-quality manpower is in global demand.
- In a fast-moving field like this, timeliness is everything — delayed funding by even one year is an enormous hit.
- A previous programme called Quantum Enabled Science and Technology has just been fully rolled out, more than two years after the call for proposals.
- Laudable announcement: One has to laud the government’s announcement of this new mission on a massive scale and on a par with similar programmes announced recently by the United States and Europe.
Limits and way forward
- But there are some limits that come from how the government must do business with public funds.
- Role of the private sector: Here, private funding, both via industry and philanthropy, can play an outsized role even with much smaller amounts.
- For example, unrestricted funds that can be used to attract and retain high-quality manpower and to build international networks — all at short notice — can and will make an enormous difference to the success of this enterprise.
- Private participation is the effective way: This is the most effective way (as China and Singapore discovered) to catch up scientifically with the international community, while quickly creating a vibrant intellectual environment to help attract top researchers.
- Connection with industry: Further, connections with the Indian industry from the start would also help quantum technologies become commercialised successfully, allowing the Indian industry to benefit from the quantum revolution.
- We must encourage industrial houses and strategic philanthropists to take an interest and reach out to Indian institutions with an existing presence in this emerging field.
- For example, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), home to India’s first superconducting quantum computing lab, would be delighted to engage.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- Prospects of revival of SAARC and India's leadership in the aftermath of COVID-19.
Context
If PM Modi’s gesture to SAARC is to go some way towards a solution for the region, India, which will be picking up the pieces itself, must have something to offer to its neighbours.
Background
- Not a viable option: Since 2014, when the last SAARC summit was held in Kathmandu, India had made it more than clear that it no longer considers the South Asia grouping viable.
- It was Islamabad’s turn to host the next summit in 2016, but the Uri attack intervened, and India refused to attend.
- SAARC in limbo: Under the SAARC charter, the summit cannot be held even if a single nation stays away, and the grouping has remained in limbo since.
- India’s increased engagement with other groups: In the last five years, India has actively sought to isolate Pakistan in the region.
- India hyped up its engagement with other regional groupings such as-
- BBIN (Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal), and
- BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation), which includes Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Nepal and Bhutan.
How to read the sudden resurrection of SAARC?
- Officials denied revival speculation: Despite hopes that this might be a SAARC revival, officials have discounted such speculation. That would require India to climb down from its position that Pakistan has taken verifiable steps to address India’s concerns on terrorism. There is no evidence at all that Delhi is about to do that.
- No hope of move from Pakistan: It would need Pakistan to turn over a new leaf, stop playing with free radicals to use against India, in Kashmir or elsewhere when the time is ripe. Neither is about to happen.
No cooperative response in the works
- First to call the neighbours: At a time when leaders across the globe appeared to be engrossed in the COVID-19 calamity of their own nations, Modi was the first to think of calling the neighbours.
- Why cooperation among neighbours matter? Almost all South Asian countries are bound to each other by land borders and frequent inter-travel, and it is important that the region liaises to stop the disease from spreading across the Subcontinent.
- Countries not willing to learn from each other: It was a trifle disappointing, therefore, that beyond the experience of witnessing a unique video summit, there is not much to suggest that a cooperative response is in the works.
- There is no evidence that each country is willing to learn from the other’s experiences, or public health systems, or that we are tracking each other’s data and responses.
- What were the proposals made in the summit? Two proposals were made:
- One by India for a regional fund that Modi has generously offered to put aside $10 million for.
- Pakistan proposed the setting up of a diseases surveillance centre for sharing real-time data. India has said it would prepare emergency response task forces to help out the member countries in need.
- Delhi is said to be in the process of sending medical supplies worth $1 million to Nepal, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Maldives, which sounds like a fraction of what they may eventually require.
- Pakistan has said China will give it testing kits, protective gear and portable ventilators, as well as a cash grant for a state-of-the-art isolation centre.
- Beijing, eager to live down its image as the point of origin for this global mayhem, will make the same offer to other South Asian countries soon.
What were the lessons India need to learn from video-summit?
- Indian need to go beyond Big Brother events: If the intention was to try and restore the aura Prime Minister Modi enjoyed in the region at the beginning of NDA-1, as some have not improbably suggested, it has to go beyond this Big Boss event.
- The video summit saw polite attendance by all SAARC leaders, with the exception of Pakistan which sent its health minister.
- But going by the scant media coverage that the summit, the first after six years, received in the neighbourhood, no one is holding their breath.
- India has lost heft it once held: For many countries in the region now, India has lost the heft it used to have in the last century.
- A proximate reason is that it is no longer an economic powerhouse nor holds the promise of being one in the near future.
- The other reason is that it no longer offers itself as a model nation, pulling together its complex diversities, pluralism and political ideologies in a broad-minded vision.
- CAA factor and changing the perception of India: The real damage to India’s standing was, of course, done by the badmouthing of the Muslim countries in the neighbourhood to justify the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019.
- Larger image of themselves: Seen from the eyes of other countries in South Asia today, India is now just a larger version of themselves and their political and economic dysfunctions.
- While additionally possessing and wielding the instruments to be vengeful and punitive in its foreign policy — including arm-twisting them now and then in its constant quest to isolate Pakistan.
Conclusion
- The real test for India lies ahead: The real test of Modi’s leadership of South Asia, and by extension of India’s, will come after the pandemic subsides, when each country has to deal with what remains of its economy.
- The tourism economy of Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka would have been crushed by then. Pakistan will be worse off than it is now.
- There will be more unemployment and hardship everywhere in the region.
- Some of these countries will inevitably turn to China.
- India must have something to offer as a solution: If Modi’s gesture is to go some way as part of the solution for the region, India, which will be picking up the pieces itself, must have something to offer to its South Asian neighbours six months to a year down the line.
- Is there such a plan? Can India put aside the prejudices of its domestic communalism, and its own economic woes, demonstrate large-heartedness to all the countries of the region, irrespective of what religion its people follow, irrespective of its historical hostilities with at least one?
- There may be more economic refugees knocking on India’s doors, apart from a host of other inter-regional problems.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- What are the attitudinal problems in India's healthcare system and how India should deal with the outbreak of COVID-19?
Context
The COVID-19 pandemic has repercussions beyond the biomedical sector — it impinges on industry, transport, finance, banking and education sectors. All of them must act in unison.
Virus different from its nearest relative
- Comparison with SARS and MERS: The rapid spread of the zoonotic (transmitted from animal-to-human) coronavirus infection in Wuhan in China — several hundreds every day — in December 2019 and January 2020 was a clear signal that COVID-19 is drastically different from its nearest relative viz.-
- the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) coronavirus,
- and its distant relative, the Middle-East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus.
- The former spread slowly among humans in 2002-2003. It was checked globally within nine months by screening passengers and quarantining travellers from infected countries.
- There have been no cases since July 2003. MERS coronavirus is, by and large, an inefficient spreader — it has been confined to the Middle-East.
- How COVID-19 is different? COVID-19 has assumed a pandemic form.
- In less than three months, it has reached more than 180 countries and claimed more than 10,000 lives.
- The disease has claimed more people in Italy than in the country of its origin.
- Travel bans, screening travellers and quarantines are necessary to slow the spread of COVID-19.
- However, there is a limit to the utility of these measures.
- Community transmission: When the infection becomes widespread, screening procedures will become inefficient — the virus will spread stealthily.
- Indigenous transmission — the virus spreading within communities — has begun in many countries.
- This is typical of viruses that spread from human to human through the respiratory system.
How India’s health management systems deals with the disease burden?
- Medicine consists of three components —
- universal healthcare,
- public health, and
- research to constantly contextualise solutions to local problems.
- Reaction after falling ill: Many of us in India believe that disease is a matter of fate or karma and disease prevention is not always in human hands — we only react after falling ill.
- No focus on prevention and control: Therapeutics and surgeries — healthcare interventions — are valued much, but not disease prevention and control.
- Cultural beliefs matter: Attitudes and cultural beliefs do matter. If victims are somehow regarded as responsible for their maladies, universal healthcare is perceived as an optional service — not mandatory.
Good reasons to change the attitude
- There are good reasons for such thinking to change.
- Every person who contracts a communicable disease stands the risk of spreading it to others.
- Prevention of disease is states’ duty: At the same time, the state, too, is responsible for the spread of diseases by not mitigating the environmental and social risk factors or determinants. Prevention of disease is the state’s duty.
- Investment in health and its implications: Healthy people create wealth. For example, every year, uncontrolled tuberculosis drains India’s economy of the equivalent of the GDP of roughly 2 million people.
- Investment in health, therefore, can have implications for the country’s economy.
- But Indians have never really demanded an effective public health system.
- Healthcare has never become a political slogan. That’s one reason for the sorry state of India’s public health system.
- Absence of effective public health system: The country does have international obligations to control TB, malaria and leprosy, and eliminate polio.
- Ad hoc measures: In the absence of an effective public health system, the country has depended on fulfilling these obligations through ad hoc measures that are targeted towards one disease.
- Need for robust health system: Robust public health systems are needed to prevent typhoid, cholera, dysentery, leptospirosis, brucellosis, water-born hepatitis and influenza.
- Overburdened healthcare system with communicable disease: The absence of an effective preventive element means that healthcare services in the public sector are over-burdened with uncontrolled communicable diseases.
- The entry of the private sector: This encourages private sector healthcare providers to step in, which brings in problems related to unregulated profits.
- Questions are often raised over the quality of service.
- COVID-19 could compound the systems problems: Moreover, uncontrolled communicable diseases vie with the non-communicable ones for the healthcare provider’s attention. The COVID-19 outbreak could compound the system’s problems.
One step ahead of the virus
- SARS and Nipah in Kerala: The SARS and Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala in 2018 were crises that required short bursts of professional activity. Our healthcare systems coped with them.
- But endemic diseases, even influenza, that has a vaccine, require sustained interventions.
- Test for the country’s healthcare system: Herein lies the test for the country’s healthcare system.
- It has often been seen that the system is not able to sustain its initial momentum.
- There is a possibility that COVID-19 could follow the path taken by the HINI influenza – after the epidemic died down, the disease became endemic.
- The country’s healthcare system has to prepare for that. In other words, it has to be one step ahead of the virus.
Way forward
- Equipping district hospitals: Every district hospital must be equipped to diagnose infections caused by serious communicable diseases — these affect the lungs, brain, liver and kidneys.
- The system should also ensure that healthcare personnel do not get infected.
- Allocate 5% of GDP to health budget: The country needs to allocate 5 per cent of the GDP to the health budget to have a health management system that can take care of public health emergencies such as the COVID-19 outbreak — and its aftermath.
- Unified control machinery: A unified command and control machinery, under the prime minister’s guidance, to control the spread of COVID-19 is overdue by at least six weeks in the country.
- Define the tasks of various authorities: The tasks of the Directorate-General of Health Services, National Centre for Disease Control, Indian Council of Medical Research, National Health Mission and state health ministries must be clearly defined.
- The mechanism for coordination: Most importantly, a mechanism for coordination between these agencies should be set up to deal with the COVID-19 threat.
Conclusion
The COVID-19 pandemic has repercussions beyond the biomedical sector — it impinges on industry, transport, finance, banking and education sectors. All of them must act in unison.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: SAARC and BIMSTEC
Mains level: Paper 2- Why should India revive the SAARC?
Context
Prime Minister Narendra Modi signalled a change in India’s rejection of SAARC as a platform for regional cooperation by inviting all heads of state and government of SAARC countries to a video summit to promote a region-wide response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
SAARC in virtual deep freeze
- Who attended the video conference? The video summit was attended by all SAARC leaders, except for Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan, who deputed his special assistant for health to represent him.
- Status of SAARC: SAARC has been in a virtual deep freeze since India conveyed it would not attend the 19th SAARC summit, to be hosted by Pakistan in 2017, in the wake of the cross-border terrorist incidents at Pathankot and Uri.
- Other SAARC leaders also declined to attend.
- The summit was indefinitely postponed.
- Focus on BIMSTEC: Since then India has downgraded SAARC as an instrument of its “Neighbourhood First” policy and shifted the focus to the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) instead.
Backdrop of SAARC revival
- For his swearing-in ceremony in 2014, PM Modi had invited leaders of all SAARC countries including Pakistan.
- For the swearing-in ceremony in 2019, it is BIMSTEC leaders who were the invited guests.
- Soon after taking over as external affairs minister, S Jaishankar referred to SAARC having “certain problems” while BIMSTEC was described as having both energy and possibility and “a mindset which fits in with that very optimistic vision of economic cooperation that we want.”
- Deliberate political message: Against this backdrop, Modi’s initiative in convening a SAARC video summit, instead of a BIMSTEC video summit, conveys a deliberate political message.
Proposal of SAARC Covid-19 Fund and Health Ministers’ Conference
- At the conference, Modi gave a call for the countries of SAARC “coming together and not going apart.”
- A SAARC Covid-19 Fund has been proposed with India committing US$10 million.
- Modi referred to the role which could be played by an existing SAARC institution, the Disaster Management Centre, in enabling a coordinated response to Covid-19.
- Suggestions were made by several leaders, including the Pakistani representative, for a SAARC Health Ministers’ Conference to follow up on the summit. This is likely to be convened soon.
Pakistan on defensive
- India seen as undermining SAARC: Modi’s initiative has put Pakistan on the defensive. So far, it was India which was seen as undermining SAARC in which other South Asian countries have a keen interest.
- BIMSTEC no alternative to SAARC: While there has been readiness on their part to participate in BIMSTEC, they do not consider the latter as an alternative to SAARC. In taking this initiative, Modi may be responding to these sentiments.
- Onus on Pakistan: If Pakistan now drags its feet, then the onus will be on her for weakening the Association.
- There is a new situation as a result of the abrogation of Article 370 relating to Kashmir, which has been denounced by Pakistan.
- Difficulty for Pakistan: It would be difficult for Pakistan to accept cooperation with India under SAARC because this would compromise its stand on Kashmir.
BIMSTEC not delivered expected results
- Not yielded the expected result: It is also a fact that the focus on BIMSTEC has not yielded the results India may have expected.
- Trade below the set target: Current trade among its members is US$40 billion, though the potential was set at $250 billion.
- Act East policy stalled: India’s Act East policy, which involved a key role for India’s Northeast, has stalled.
- RCEP factor: The Northeast is in political turmoil while India has opted out of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which would have added substance to BIMSTEC.
Why India should revive SAARC
1.BIMSTEC not a credible option to SAARC
- Today it is difficult to see BIMSTEC as a credible and preferred alternative to SAARC.
- Cooperation both through SAARC and BIMSTEC: In any case, it makes better sense for India to pursue regional economic cooperation both through SAARC as well as BIMSTEC rather than project them as competing entities.
- SCO membership a contradictory position: If the argument is that regional cooperation involving Pakistan is a non-starter due to its ingrained hostility towards India, then being part of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), where both are members, becomes a somewhat contradictory position.
2.The China factor
- China making inroad into the neighbourhood: In determining its position towards SAARC, India must also take into account the significant inroads that China has been making in its sub-continental neighbourhood.
- BRI initiative: With the exception of Bhutan, every South Asian country has signed on to China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
- A number of Chinese infrastructure projects are already in place or are being planned in each of our neighbours.
- China likely to become a key player: With SAARC becoming inoperative and BIMSTEC not living up to its promise, China is likely to become a key economic partner for South Asia and India’s hitherto pre-eminent role will be further eroded.
- On this count, too, it is advisable for India to advance regional cooperation both under SAARC as well as BIMSTEC. Both are necessary.
3.Pakistan factor
- Should not give up on Pakistan: Despite the frustration in dealing with Pakistan, India should not give up on its western neighbour.
- Relation needs to be managed: Relations with Islamabad will remain adversarial for the foreseeable future but still need to be managed with two ends in mind.
- One, to ensure that tensions do not escalate into open hostilities and,
- two, to reduce leverage which third countries may exercise over both countries on the pretext of reducing tensions between them.
- No compromise in position on terrorism: This does not in any way compromise our firm stand against cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan. The revival of SAARC could be an added constraint on Pakistan’s recourse to terrorism as an instrument of state policy.
4.Afghanistan factor
- Finally, the revival of SAARC would also support the Ashraf Ghani government in Kabul in navigating through a difficult and complex peace process involving a Pakistan-sponsored Taliban.
Conclusion
While these are essentially tactical considerations, there is a compelling reality which we ignore at our peril. Whether it is a health crisis like the Covid-19 or climate change, the melting of Himalayan glaciers or rising sea levels, all such challenges are better and more efficiently dealt with through regional cooperation. The Indian Subcontinent is an ecologically integrated entity and only regionally structured and collaborative responses can work.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- Need to entrust the Human Right Commissions with more powers.
Context
The Madras High Court is to decide on whether the recommendations made by such panels are binding upon the state.
A fourth branch institution
- Enactment of the Act and its purpose: In 1993, the Indian Parliament enacted the Protection of Human Rights Act.
- Purpose: The purpose of the Act was to establish an institutional framework that could effectively protect, promote and fulfil the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Indian Constitution.
- To this end, the Act created a National Human Rights Commission, and also, Human Rights Commissions at the levels of the various States.
- What is fourth branch institution: The National and State Human Rights Commissions are examples of what we now call “fourth branch institutions.”
- According to the classical account, democracy is sustained through a distribution of power between three “branches” — the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary, with each branch acting as a check and a balance upon the others.
- The necessity of independent bodies: The complexity of governance and administration in the modern world has necessitated the existence of a set of independent bodies, which are charged with performing vital functions of oversight.
- Some of these bodies are constitutional bodies — established by the Constitution itself. These include, for instance, the Election Commission and the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General.
- Others have been established under law: for example, the Information Commission under the Right to Information Act, and Human Rights Commissions under the Protection of Human Rights Act.
- HRC under scrutiny and criticism: In the two-and-a-half decades of their existence, however, the functioning of the Human Rights Commissions have come under scrutiny and criticism.
- There have been the usual critiques of the politicization of autonomous bodies, and selectiveness.
- Toothless: Even more than that, however, it has been alleged that for all intents and purposes, the Human Rights Commissions are toothless: at the highest, they play an advisory role, with the government left free to disobey or even disregard their findings.
Limitations of NHRC
- NHRC’s recommendations are not binding
- NHRC cannot penalize authorities who do not implement its orders
- JK is out of its jurisdiction
- NHRC jurisdiction does not cover human right violations by private parties
- 3/5 are judges, leading to more judicial touch to its functioning
- 2/5 are also not Human rights experts. Political appointments.
- Time limit is set to 1 year i.e. NHRC cannot entertain ca case older than 1 year
- Limited jurisdiction over violation by armed forces
- The act does not extend to J&K
- Vacancies are not filled on time. Most human rights commissions are functioning with less than the prescribed Members
- Fund crunch
- Overload and backlog. Too many complaints. Hence, in recent days, NHRC is finding it difficult to address the increasing number of complaints
- Bureaucratic style of functioning
What the case before Madras High Court will decide?
- Whether recommendations are mandatory or not: A Full Bench of the High Court will be deciding upon whether “recommendations” made by the Human Rights Commissions are binding upon their respective State (or Central) governments, or whether the government is entitled to reject or take no action upon them.
- What are the power of HRC under the act? Under the Protection of Human Rights Act, the Human Rights Commissions are empowered to inquire into the violations of human rights committed by state authorities, either upon petitions presented to them, or upon their own initiative.
- Powers of civil courts: While conducting these inquiries, the Commissions are granted identical powers to that of civil courts, such as the examining witnesses, ordering for documents, receiving evidence, and so on.
- These proceedings are deemed to be judicial proceedings, and they require that any person, who may be prejudicially affected by their outcome, has a right to be heard.
- Issue over the meaning of recommend: The controversy before the Madras High Court stems from the issue of what is to be done after the Human Rights Commission completes its enquiry, and reaches a conclusion that human rights have been violated.
- Section 18 of the Protection of Human Rights Act empowers the Human Rights Commission to “recommend” to the concerned government to grant compensation to the victim, to initiate prosecution against the erring state authorities, to grant interim relief, and to take various other steps.
- The key question revolves around the meaning of the word “recommend.”
- Opposite conclusion by different benches: The Full Bench of the Madras High Court is hearing the case because different, smaller benches, have come to opposite conclusions about how to understand the word “recommend” in the context of the Protection of Human Rights Act.
- According to one set of judgments, this word needs to be taken in its ordinary sense. To “recommend” means to “put forward” or to “suggest” something or someone as being suitable for some purpose.
- Ordinarily, a mere “suggestion” is not binding. Furthermore, Section 18 of the Human Rights Act also obligates the concerned government to “forward its comments on the report, including the action taken or proposed to be taken thereon, to the Commission”, within a period of one month.
- The argument, therefore, is that this is the only obligation upon the government.
- If indeed the Act intended to make the recommendations of the Commission binding upon the government, it would have said so: it would not simply have required the government to communicate what action it intended to take to the Commission (presumably, a category that includes “no action” as well).
Why ordinary meaning of recommend needs to be rejected?
- Argument against the ordinary meaning of “recommend”
- Ordinary meaning and meaning within the legal framework: The first is that there is often a gap between the ordinary meanings of words and the meanings that they have within legal frameworks.
- Legal meaning: Legal meaning is a function of context, and often, the purpose of the statute within which a word occurs has a strong influence on how it is to be understood.
- For example, the Supreme Court has held, in the past, that the overriding imperative of maintaining judicial independence mandates that “consultation” with the Chief Justice for judicial appointments (as set out under the Constitution) be read as “concurrence” of the Chief Justice (this is the basis for the collegium system).
- Recently, while interpreting the Land Acquisition Act, the apex court held that the word “and” in a provision had to be construed as “or”.
- Of course, there needs to be a good reason for interpretations of this kind.
- Constitutional commitment: This brings us to the purpose of the Human Rights Act, and the importance of fourth branch institutions.
- Ensure adequate realisation of constitutional commitment: As indicated above, the Human Rights Act exists to ensure the protection and promotion of human rights.
- To fulfil this purpose, the Act creates an institutional infrastructure, via the Human Rights Commissions.
- The Human Rights Commissions, thus, are bodies that stand between the individual and the state, and whose task is to ensure the adequate realisation of constitutional commitment to protecting human rights.
- Leaving decision with the state would defeat the purpose of the act: It stands to reason that if the state was left free to obey or disobey the findings of the Commission, this constitutional role would be effectively pointless, as whatever the Human Rights Commission did, the final judgment call on whether or not to comply with its commitments under the Constitution would be left to the state authorities.
- This, it is clear, would defeat the entire purpose of the Act.
- Past precedents: Indeed, in the past, courts have invoked constitutional purpose to determine the powers of various fourth branch institutions in cases of ambiguity.
- For example, the Supreme Court laid down detailed guidelines to ensure the independence of the Central Bureau of Investigation; various judgments have endorsed and strengthened the powers of the Election Commission to compulsorily obtain relevant details of candidates, despite having no express power to do so.
- It is therefore clear that in determining the powers of autonomous bodies such as the Human Rights Commission, the role those fourth branch institutions are expected to play in the constitutional scheme is significant.
- Powers of civil courts: And lastly, as pointed out above, the Human Rights Commission has the powers of a civil court, and proceedings before it are deemed to be judicial proceedings. This provides strong reasons for its findings to be treated — at the very least — as quasi-judicial, and binding upon the state (unless challenged).
- Indeed, very recently, the Supreme Court held as much in the context of “opinions” rendered by the Foreigners Tribunals, using very similar logic to say that these “opinions” were binding.
Conclusion
The crucial role played by a Human Rights Commission — and the requirement of state accountability in a democracy committed to a ‘culture of justification’ — strongly indicates that the Commission’s recommendations should be binding upon the state. Which way the Madras High Court holds will have a crucial impact upon the future of human rights protection in India.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 3- Using technology to deal with epidemics.
Context
Coronavirus crisis is an opportunity for India to build on domestic technological capabilities in artificial intelligence, big data analytics, life sciences and health technology in the private sector.
How a small tech company flagged Covid-19 outbreak?
- What does it do? A small tech company in Canada — BlueDot — was among first outside China to spot a new epidemic spreading out from Wuhan last December.
- BlueDot, founded in Canada by a medical scientist of South Asian origin, Kamran Khan, tracks the origin and transmission of infectious diseases around the world.
- How could they detect the outbreak in China? BlueDot did this by sifting through massive volumes of news reports and blogs by individuals, including health professionals flowing out of China.
- Data analytics and medical expertise combined: BlueDot combines “public health and medical expertise with advanced data analytics to build solutions that track, contextualise, and anticipate infectious disease risks”.
- Use of AI: BlueDot is one of the many technology firms leveraging artificial intelligence for business and policy purposes.
- Many governments are reaching out to tech companies to cope with the corona crisis.
- The state government of California has just hired BlueDot to help it deal with the challenge.
The growing role of technology in dealing with coronavirus
- Across the world, policymakers see a growing role for technology in identification, tracking, and treating the coronavirus.
- Alibaba and Tencent’s help in China: In China, the Communist Party roped in big tech companies like Alibaba and Tencent in the battle against the virus.
- Silicon valley’s help in the US: In the US, President Donald Trump has set aside his well-known distaste for Democrat-leaning Silicon Valley to tackle what he now calls a war-like emergency.
- India will need all the science and technology it can get hold of in overcoming the crisis that is bound to escalate by the day.
- An opportunity to do good: For the small tech startups in related areas, this is a moment to shine. For the large tech companies, this is a huge opportunity to deploy their immense capabilities to resolve the specific problems posed by the spread of the coronavirus.
- In rising to the occasion, they could fend off a lot of the recent negative criticism of their business practices and demonstrate that their commitment to “doing good” is not just empty rhetoric.
- A good business proposition: “Doing good” is also a sensible business proposition at this time.
- As governments desperately seek solutions to the crisis, the tech startups and established companies leverage the moment to scale up many technologies, develop new uses and markets.
How countries used technology to deal with the outbreak
- How China used technology? In China, as the government moved decisively after the delayed initial response, it turned to-
- the well-established mass surveillance system based on facial recognition technologies,
- sensing technologies to identify those with fever in public places and
- data from mobile phone companies to trace the people who might be infected, and limit the spread of the disease.
- China also developed a Health Code that uses data analytics to-
- identify and assess the risk of every individual in a targeted zone based on travel history and time spent in infected places.
- The individuals are assigned a colour code (red, yellow, or green) which they can access via popular apps to know if they ought to be quarantined or allowed in public.
- How Korea used technology? Many Asian democracies like South Korea have also turned to AI tools to contain the spread of the disease.
- How the US used technology? As it copes with the rapid spread of the coronavirus, the US had no option but to use surveillance to contain it.
- Partners in dealing with outbreak: Unsurprisingly, the big tech companies in the US, based on collecting and monetising massive amounts of data from individuals, have inevitably become partners for Washington.
- But the relationship between the government, corporations and individual citizens in the US is governed by a welter of laws.
- There is mounting pressure now to tweak these laws to manage the corona crisis.
- The US is also liberalising the regulations on the access to, and use of, patients’ health records.
Growing collaboration between science and the state
- The race between China and the US: Overarching these arguments is a race between the US and China to find new vaccines for the coronavirus.
- And, more broadly, for the mastery of new scientific capabilities — from artificial intelligence to health technologies.
- The competition, in turn, is promoting a more intensive alliance between science and the state in both nations.
- Collaboration could accelerate the technological capabilities: The collaboration between science and the state during past crises led to a dramatic acceleration of technological capabilities.
- World War precedents: During the Second World War, science and the state got together to move nuclear physics from the lab to the battlefield.
- Cold War precedent: The Cold War between America and Russia promoted the development of space technology, microelectronics, communications and computing.
- Role of private entities: What marks out the current technological race between the US and China is the role of private and non-governmental entities.
- That might well be the missing link in India’s effort to beat the coronavirus.
Conclusion
- Opportunity for India: The current crisis, however, is also an opportunity for India to build on the existing domestic technological capabilities in the areas of artificial intelligence, big data analytics, life sciences, health technology in the private sector.
- India needs stronger private sector in science: In India, the state has dominated the development of science and its organisation. That was of great value in the early decades after Independence.
- Today, what Delhi needs is a stronger private sector in science and greater synergy with it in dealing with challenges like the corona crisis.
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