Editorials - 13-04-2022

‘Healthcare as an optional public service’ would ensure the legal right to receive free, quality care in a public institution

The lingering COVID-19 crisis is a good time to revive an issue that is, oddly, slow to come to life in India — universal health care (UHC). Meanwhile, UHC has become a well-accepted objective of public policy around the world. It has even been largely realised in many countries, not only the richer ones (minus the United States) but also a growing number of other countries such as Brazil, China, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Some of them, such as Thailand, made a decisive move towards UHC at a time (20 years ago) when their per capita GDP was no higher than India’s per capita GDP today. The time has come for India — or some Indian States at least — to take the plunge.

The basic idea of UHC is that no one should be deprived of quality health care for the lack of ability to pay. This idea was well expressed — in archaic words perhaps — by Aneurin Bevan, the fiery founder of the National Health Service (NHS) in Britain. “No society,” he said, “can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.” The same idea inspired the Bhore Committee report of 1946, where a case was made for India to create its own NHS-type health-care system.

Routes to UHC

In concrete terms, UHC typically relies on one or both of two basic approaches: public service and social insurance. In the first approach, health care is provided as a free public service, just like the services of a fire brigade or public library. If this sounds like socialist thinking, that is what it is. Interestingly, however, this socialist project has worked not only in communist countries such as Cuba but also in the capitalist world (well beyond the United Kingdom).

The second approach allows private as well as public provision of health care, but the costs are mostly borne by the social insurance fund(s), not the patient, so the result is similar: everyone has access to quality health care. Social insurance is very different from a private insurance market. The simplest variant is one where insurance is compulsory and universal, financed mainly from general taxation, and run by a single non-profit agency in the public interest. That is how it works in Canada (province-wise), and to varying extents in other countries with “national health insurance” (e.g., Australia and Taiwan). This single-payer system makes it easier for the state to bargain for a good price from health-care providers. But some countries have other models of social insurance, based, for instance, on multiple non-profit insurance funds instead of a single payer (Germany is one example). The basic principles remain: everyone should be covered and insurance should be geared to the public interest rather than private profit.

Some challenges

Even in a system based on social insurance, public service plays an essential role. In the absence of public health centres, dedicated not only to primary health care but also to preventive work, there is a danger of patients rushing to expensive hospitals every other day. This would make the system wasteful and expensive. As it is, containing costs is a major challenge with social insurance, because patient and health-care provider have a joint interest in expensive care — one to get better, the other to earn. One possible remedy is to require the patient to bear part of the costs (a “co-payment”, in insurance jargon), but that conflicts with the principle of UHC. Recent evidence suggests that even small co-payments often exclude many poor patients from quality health care.

Another challenge with social insurance is to regulate private health-care providers. Here, a crucial distinction needs to be made between for-profit and non-profit providers. Non-profit health-care providers have done great work around the world (including the U.S., where most hospitals were non-profit institutions just a few decades ago). For-profit health care, however, is deeply problematic because of the pervasive conflict between the profit motive and the well-being of the patient. This calls for strict regulation, if for-profit health care is allowed at all.

Today, most countries with UHC rely on a combination of public service and social insurance. For all we know, however, the NHS model based on plain public service may be the best approach. Private non-profit health care can be regarded as a form of public service, and private for-profit health care tends to defy discipline. A vibrant NHS is hard to beat.

The word “vibrant”, of course, is critical. I am referring not only to good management and adequate resources but also to a sound work culture and professional ethics. A primary health centre can work wonders, but only if doctors and nurses are on the job and care for the patients. India’s public health services have a bad name in that respect, but they are improving, and they can improve more.

Right to health care

What would be a possible route to UHC for India today? The private sector is too entrenched for a NHS to displace it in the near future. But it is possible to envisage a framework for UHC that would build primarily on health care as a public service, and have a chance at least to converge toward some sort of NHS in due course.

This framework might be called “healthcare as an optional public service” (HOPS). The idea is that everyone would have a legal right to receive free, quality health care in a public institutionif they wish . It would not prevent anyone from seeking health care from the private sector at their own expense. But the public sector would guarantee decent health services to everyone as a matter of right, free of cost.

In a sense, this is what some Indian States are already trying to do. In Kerala and Tamil Nadu, for instance, most illnesses can be satisfactorily treated in the public sector, at little cost to the patient. There is a thriving private sector too, begging for better regulation and restraint. But health care of decent quality is available to everyone as an optional public service.

HOPS would not be as egalitarian as the NHS or national health insurance model where most people are in the same health-care boat. But it would still be a big step toward UHC. Further, it is likely to become more egalitarian over time, as the public sector provides a growing range of health services. If quality health care is available for free in the public sector, most patients will have little reason to go to the private sector.

What about social insurance? It could play a limited role in this framework, to help cover procedures that are not easily available in the public sector (e.g., high-end surgeries). Social insurance, however, carries a risk of tilting health care towards expensive tertiary care, and also towards better-off sections of the population. The extension of social insurance to for-profit health-care providers is especially risky, given their power and influence. There is a case for social insurance to work mainly within the non-profit sectors (public and private), leaving out for-profit health care as far as possible.

The main difficulty with the HOPS framework is to specify the scope of the proposed health-care guarantee, including quality standards. UHC does not mean unlimited health care: there are always limits to what can be guaranteed to everyone. HOPS requires not only health-care standards but also a credible method to revise these standards over time. Some useful elements are already available, such as the Indian Public Health Standards.

Tamil Nadu is well placed to make HOPS a reality under its proposed Right to Health Bill. Tamil Nadu is already able to provide most health services in the public sector with good effect (according to the fourth National Family Health Survey, a large majority of households in Tamil Nadu go to the public sector for health care when they are sick). The scope and quality of these services are growing steadily over time. A Right to Health Bill would be an invaluable affirmation of the State’s commitment to quality health care for all. It would empower patients and their families to demand quality services, helping to improve the system further. Last but not least, it would act as a model and inspiration for all Indian States.

Jean Drèze is Visiting Professor at the Department of Economics, Ranchi University, Jharkhand



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The practice of marrying early unwittingly lands young tribal men in jail under the POCSO Act

The Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu has a substantial tribal population. Tribal communities in the region include the Todas, Kotas, Irulas, Paniyas, Kattunayakas, and Kurumbas, each with distinct practices, cultures, and ceremonies. Tribal people practise customs that “civilised” society finds difficult to accept. Child marriage, for instance, is common in some of these communities. There are ceremonies attached to each practice, sanctified by religion. Due to the conflict between some of these traditional practices and the law of the land, tribal people often unwittingly end up in jail.

Customs and laws

The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act is a landmark legislation, enacted in 2012, to protect children from sexual offences. One provision in the law mandates hospitals to report to the jurisdictional police station when girls below 18 years of age are admitted for delivery. On receipt of such reports, police authorities are mandated to register an FIR against the person responsible for the pregnancy. This provision clearly intends to punish males who have forced sexual intercourse with girls below 18 years of age. However, the law fails to make room for consensual relationships or validated marriages in some communities. Most tribal people do not keep records of their date of birth. Most of them marry when they come of age and usually have children before they reach the legal age of marriage. As a result, tribal boys are arrested and prosecuted.

Hindu laws are the products of the unification and codification of the customs of a majority of people who follow Hinduism, but they are not inclusive or universal. The law recognises that there are customs and traditions followed by different groups of people, beyond what is codified, and provides that they are equally legal. India is a diverse nation and it is difficult, even improbable, to have a uniform law for the whole country.

Tribal communities in India follow diverse practices, some of which are for survival and adaptation. For example, polyandry is practised by the Gallongs of Arunachal Pradesh, where the brothers of a family who cannot afford a high bride price marry the same woman. This gives them an economic advantage. Similarly, it is natural and logical for tribal communities with a lower life expectancy to marry before they are 18 years old. To treat those who engage in such practices as criminals is to be averse to the tenets of social justice enshrined in our Constitution.

Many tribal communities in the Nilgiris usually get girls married off early, that is, when their daughters attain puberty. Many tribal people are hardly aware of the existence of a law, or the age of majority, or the legal age for marriage. This being the case, arresting the husbands of girls who have happily welcomed the arrival of a baby is cruel. Till date, about 50 such criminal cases have been filed against tribal youth in Nilgiris district. Tribal women are mostly self-sufficient; it is only in recent times that they have started to utilise medical services. If there are unfortunate incidents of prosecution, they may be discouraged to seek proper medical care.

Codified Hindu laws provide statutory recognition to the customs of Hindus, while also equally recognising customs not dealt with thereunder. Polyandry, child marriage and divorce among tribal communities, practised by them in their own unique ways, are recognised as customs. By being placed on the same pedestal as mainstream custom, polyandry cannot be treated as adultery, nor can child marriage be punished using a standard that the tribal people do not relate to.

The hardships faced by the tribal youth who are arrested under the POCSO Act are manifold. The youth are remanded to judicial custody often without even knowing why they are being arrested. Bail is granted almost two weeks after their arrest, which means they are incarcerated as undertrials. Legal assistance is often beyond their reach. This detention, which is beyond their comprehension, is sometimes viewed by them as ill luck brought by the newborn, leading to the abandonment of the child and a breakdown of marital life. Custodial interrogation in these cases is unnecessary and should not be adopted as routine practice. If at all, police authorities can issue notice under Section 41A of the Code of Criminal Procedure and ask the person charged to appear before them for interrogation instead of arresting and remanding him.

At the outset, while child marriages must be dissuaded, a blanket and rigid law that fails to address multiple factors such as tribal customs, religious validation, adolescent consent and elopement, and criminalises males who engage in sexual intercourse with consenting females, cannot be the solution. The Madras High Court recently quashed cases under the POCSO Act against teenagers for elopement. It held that the Act cannot be invoked in such cases. InArnab Manoranjan Goswami v. The State of Maharashtra (2020), the Supreme Court reiterated that the basic rule of criminal justice system is ‘bail’ and not ‘jail’ and urged the High Courts and District Courts to enforce this principle. Prosecution cannot be made the norm in child marriage cases, especially when the act is valid in the eyes of personal custom that a person subscribes to.

Child marriages solemnised in violation of upper age limits are voidable under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006. After the couple reaches the eligible age, the marriage is ratified and legalised. Criminal cases registered under the POCSO Act against tribal boys eventually end in acquittal for want of evidence or because of compromise. So, no purpose is served with these arrests.

Tools to create awareness

Tribal populations have made substantial headway in education thanks to a targeted campaign to create awareness. Such tools can be employed in the implementation of the POCSO Act. The tribal communities of Wayanad district in Kerala face similar issues as those in the Nilgiris. In response, the District Legal Services Authority of Kerala created a short film,Incha , in the Paniya language to educate the people about the POCSO Act when more than 250 cases were registered against tribal men who had married girls under the age of 18. However, how far a blanket law can make incursions into the cultural practices of a tribal group remains a question.

A provision intended to protect children from sexual abuses/offences is threatening the lifestyle of certain people to whom this country promises social justice. To be branded a criminal for following cultural practices and to be stripped of dignity is cruel. A law that seeks to protect a vulnerable group should not be allowed to strip yet another vulnerable and marginalised group of its rights and practices. India is a nation of diversity and has always managed to balance the interests of diverse groups to ensure democracy and equality to all. An amendment to the POCSO Act is required so that we continue celebrating the cultural chaos that we call our country. After all, law is for its people.

M. Santhanaraman is an Advocate at the Madras High Court



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Under the new Indian Railway Management Service, training its future leaders is the most important task ahead

A recent Gazette notification regarding the creation of the Indian Railway Management Service (IRMS) marks a paradigm shift in the management of one of the world’s largest rail networks. Eight out of 10 Group-A Indian Railway services have been merged to create the IRMS. They are: Indian Railway Traffic Service (IRTS), Indian Railway Personnel Service (IRPS), Indian Railway Accounts Service (IRAS), Indian Railway Service of Electrical Engineers (IRSEE), Indian Railway Service of Signal Engineers (IRSS), Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineers (IRSME), Indian Railway Service of Civil Engineers (IRSE) and Indian Railway Stores Service (IRSS).

Through the UPSC

This marks one of the biggest bureaucratic transformations in India since Independence. A nearly 8,000 strong cadre of the erstwhile eight services is now merged into one.

Besides removing silos, this restructuring also aims at rationalising the top-heavy bureaucracy of the Indian Railways. Rather than getting into a debate over the decision to create the IRMS, it is worthwhile discussing what lies ahead for future IRMS applicants. About four lakh applicants will apply for the IRMS through the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC); it is important to figure out what the job demands for the next 30-odd years of their career and whether they have the right aptitude for the role the job demands.

Coordinated work

A typical day for an Indian Railways officer (in field postings) begins at 6 a.m.; there are also control office calls at odd hours in the night. For a railway officer, every day of the year is practically a working day, and he/she has to prove their mettle every single day. Maintaining safety of operations and ensuring the punctuality of trains require a wide set of skills, from engineering to coordination. The adoption of the latest technology and improving the efficiency of logistics operations require continuous updating of knowledge. The job of a railway officer is not meant for those looking for a fixed hours work profile.

Training the future leaders of India’s public transporter in the rapidly evolving logistics sector of the country is the most important task ahead. The fact remains that even after the creation of the IRMS, the 8,000 strong (already serving) officers of the Indian Railways will need to work in coordination and not in silos, as they will be serving in the organisation for decades to come. Though the UPSC will recruit a few hundred IRMS officers each year from now, they will remain much less in number when compared to already serving officers for a long time to come. This highlights the importance of training of the existing cadre of officers as they will have to deliver on the ambitious Gati-Shakti projects.

The task of training such a dynamic talent pool assumes importance in view of India’s aspirations of becoming a $5 trillion economy and an economic powerhouse in the near future. The Indian Railways will play a very crucial role in achieving key objectives with its prestigious projects such as a network of dedicated freight corridors, high speed rail corridors, station re-development projects, the induction of Vande Bharat trains on a large scale, and other projects of strategic importance. All this will require a massive revamp of the capacity building ecosystem of the Indian Railways.

Chance for revamped training

The merger of services provides an opportunity to redesign the training for newly recruited IRMS officers to make them future ready. Initial training along with mid-career training programmes may be reoriented. The focus should be to create capacity to manage the verticals of operations and business development, infrastructure development and maintenance, traction and rolling stock, and finance and human resource management.

The IRMS training needs to be a design based on competencies required for different leadership roles. Mission Karmayogi of the Government of India provides for competencies based postings of officers. Accordingly, domain, function and behaviour-related competencies will need to be mapped for the IRMS. The Integrated Government Online Training (iGOT) programme of the Government of India will be instrumental in shaping the career progression of IRMS officers.

Future IRMS officers should be ready to face the challenges of working in an organisation which is involved in round the clock and round the year operations, has substantial social obligations to meet and, at the same time, which must earn for itself. Leading the transformation of more than a million workforce to meet the needs of Gati Shakti goals is not an easy task. Young graduates who will be opting for the IRMS through the civil services examination should be aspirational and agile learners. They have the opportunity not only to serve the country’s lifeline but also to turbocharge the engine of the economy.

Rajesh Gupta is Director (Skill Development, Labour and Employment), NITI Aayog. Dr. Kamlesh Gosai is Deputy Director General in the National Academy of Indian Railways. The views expressed are personal



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Anganwadi workers have the potential to revive early childhood education, but they are underpaid and overburdened

Evidence on Early Childhood Education (ECE) suggests that children who engage in early and play-based learning activities have better developmental outcomes than those who don’t. The National Early Childhood Care and Education Curriculum Framework in 2013 mandated a ‘play-way’ curriculum in all Anganwadi Centres (AWCs) and preschools. In 2018, the government launched the ‘Transformation of Aspirational Districts’ initiative. One of the components involved capacity building, improving infrastructure, and nurturing a child-centric environment in the AWCs of these districts. The National Education Policy (NEP), 2020, envisions universalising Early Childhood Care and Education through Anganwadis. However, the advent of COVID-19 led to an abrupt halt in ECE services and progress.

AWCs fall under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme. Preschool education is one of the six services provided in this package. AWCs are expected to provide preschool education through low-cost, locally sourced material that caters to the sociocultural context of mothers, and children below six years. The infrastructure usually consists of an open space and one or two rooms to carry out activities. On the other hand, private preschools usually mimic the formal schooling approach in terms of infrastructure and learning activities.

Learning crisis

Evidence on AWCs and private pre-schools indicates that neither model provides appropriate inputs for the holistic development of young children. An impact study on early childhood by the Centre for Early Childhood Education and Development at Ambedkar University and ASER Centre found that children who regularly participate in a preschool programme perform better than children who do not. But at the same time, preschool education (AWCs or private preschools) is not developmentally appropriate for children. As a result, children’s early learning outcomes were nowhere close to the expected levels. An all-India survey of young children by ASER in 2019 found that not even half of the enrolled children between the ages of four and eight could perform age-appropriate cognitive tasks.

The cause of this learning crisis in Anganwadis may lie in the fact that such centres are under-resourced and overburdened. A report on the ICDS by the Ministry of Women and Child Development identified the absence of adequate space, lack of play-based learning materials, low investment in ECE and “constraints of human resources” as some key reasons for this situation. It said the implementation of the ICDS scheme in AWCs was uneven across States. The report also highlighted the lack of research and development in non-formal preschool education, making it one of the weakest dimensions of the ICDS model. The evidence showed a severe deficit in the delivery of quality ECE services even before COVID-19.

The pandemic has impacted 28 million young children across India due to the sporadic closure of AWCs and private schools (UNICEF). As a consequence, any progress made in ECE may be reversed. However, innovative strategies were devised to continue early education in some States. In Gujarat, the ‘Umbare Anganwadi (doorstep Anganwadi)’ initiative, a video series consisting of educational modules and easy-to-follow activities, was telecast every alternate day and streamed on online platforms to promote interactive learning. Similarly, Anganwadi workers in Haryana, Punjab, Odisha and Bihar visited homes to conduct activities with children. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that access to these strategies was not uniform. They also placed a huge burden on Anganwadi workers. Paramjeet, an Anganwadi worker in Punjab, said, “We give activities for children via WhatsApp, but I cannot reach all children as every parent does not have a smartphone. Sometimes, I cannot track children as the parent who owns the smartphone is at work.” To understand the repercussions of school closures, ASER conducted three field surveys in 2021 and found that the learning abilities of children had regressed. As we move into the third year of the pandemic, more children may be entering primary school severely unprepared.

Improving the model

The Anganwadi model has been struggling to deliver quality ECE, but the potential of Anganwadis remains enormous. Over the years, Anganwadi workers have ensured last-mile delivery of ECE and education care schemes. It is crucial to leverage their vast reach by filling implementation and infrastructural gaps. If we increase the honorarium of Anganwadi workers, build capacity and invest in research and development of a meaningful ECE curriculum, AWCs will be an ideal launchpad for children entering primary school.

Avantika Thareja is research associate at ASER Centre



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Recent communal flare-ups could dent business and investment in Karnataka

Even as Karnataka has set itself an ambitious target to contribute 50% to the country’s total IT business, expected to reach $350 billion in 2026 as per Nasscom, and to take its bio-economy to $50 billion by 2025, the State has attracted some unwanted global attention due to communal disturbances, with the government seen as doing too little to stem them.

Known as India’s Silicon Valley, Bengaluru is a melting pot of cultures and has one of the largest tech talent pools in India. This brand value is perceived as getting dented owing to the recent communal skirmishes.

Alarmed by the controversies about wearing hijabs in classrooms, the sale of halal meat, and the drive to evict Muslim traders from temple premises, and their possible impact on Karnataka’s global standing in business and technology, Biocon Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw called on Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai to “resolve the growing religious divide”. Tagging the Chief Minister, Ms. Shaw tweeted, “Karnataka had always forged inclusive economic development... If ITBT became communal, it would destroy our global leadership”. Though others from the tech and business community have not been as open, many have similar concerns and lament that the ruling dispensation has no grip on the situation. This, they feel, could seriously erode the State’s image if the situation is not controlled. Many say that Karnataka’s IT sector, though well incentivised, grew with minimal intervention of the political class over the last three decades and it cannot be “sacrificed” at the altar of vote bank politics.

While Mr. Bommai responded to Ms. Shaw’s tweet saying things could be resolved through dialogue, the national convener of the IT cell of the BJP, Amit Malviya, called Ms. Shaw’s tweet a “personal, politically coloured opinion” which was “conflated... with India’s leadership in the ITBT sector.” Soon after, Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Palanivel Thiagarajan said his government would welcome companies who want to leave Karnataka due to the rising communal tensions there.

These developments came within days of a startup founder, Ravish Naresh, expressing disenchantment on Twitter about Bengaluru’s crumbling public infrastructure. Telangana’s IT Minister K. Taraka Rama Rao responded to that tweet by publicly courting the startups of Karnataka. He said that Hyderabad would offer better infrastructure and a better social and physical environment than Bengaluru.

Industry observers feel that a myopic political and communal worldview in Karnataka could cost the State businesses and industries at a time when the world is trying to be less dependent on Chinese merchandise. Though no MNC has flagged the issues of prejudice and polarisation so far, many of them may weigh their options if things are allowed to go out of control.

The government has responded to these developments saying Bengaluru and Karnataka’s standing cannot be shaken by these incidents or by the invitations by other States. Mr. Bommai said Karnataka cannot be compared with any other State and invitations by other States only show their “desperation.” Karnataka’s IT Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan said Karnataka’s brand image cannot be judged by its roads alone and the State is ahead of other States in Foreign Direct Investment, which is proof of its firm standing. While this confidence may not be unfounded, it is beyond dispute that the law-and-order situation of any State is closely linked to its business ecosystem. Karnataka is a magnet for tech companies and startups for many reasons, but one of the key reasons is that it is known as a peaceful State and Bengaluru enjoys the image of being the world’s fastest growing tech hub.

mini.tejaswi@thehindu.co.in



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Modi and Biden must ensure no further erosion of the rules-based international order

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden have held a virtual summit meeting before kicking off the India and the U.S. ‘2+2’ meetings, discussions covering foreign and defence policies, respectively, in the bilateral space. On the one hand these high-level discussions represent continuity in the upward trajectory of India-U.S. cooperation across a deep spectrum of bilateral cooperative engagement; yet on the other they underscore the importance of the world’s largest and oldest democracies re-engaging in consultations at a time when the war in Ukraine has cast a cloud of uncertainty across the world stage. Although there are marked differences between their strategic positions since Russia’s invasion, the summit meeting served as an opportunity to emphasise areas where they shared a similar view, most notably in their condemnation of violence against civilians in Ukrainian cities. However, there was a large policy agenda to catch up on following the intervening vicissitudes of the COVID-19 pandemic — including global challenges relating to public health, space and technology cooperation, territorial, maritime, and cyber security, and the climate crisis. Beyond these specific sectors, where India-U.S. cooperation has a potential to improve the lives of millions, one of the highest priorities was to ensure that there is no further erosion of the rules-based international order as it applies to the Indo-Pacific.

Yet, whether in relation to the Indo-Pacific or bilateral defence and energy cooperation, Mr. Modi and Mr. Biden must have found it hard, if not impossible, to avoid the subject of Russia. Moscow remains New Delhi’s largest supplier for defence imports, and the unilateral sanctions imposed by the U.S. for trade with Russian entities could impact India’s procurement plans unless there is an unambiguous waiver granted for the same. Nowhere does this apply more prominently than in the case of India’s $5.5 billion purchase of the S-400 anti-missile system from Russia, a move that falls under the U.S. Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). Also, the Modi government appeared prickly regarding its oil imports from Russia too, with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar implying at a post-meeting press event that Washington’s attention in this regard ought to focus on European imports of Russian energy first, which dwarfed India’s. As human rights violations and apparent war crimes mount in the Ukraine war, India, which seeks recognition as a principled voice and responsible power on the global stage, may have to tread a fine line regarding its strategic backing of Russia. However, the U.S. position on India is no less delicate, as it relies on close ties and a strong record of bilateral cooperation with New Delhi to balance China’s aspiration to be and act as a regional hegemon.



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China should reconsider its zero COVID strategy and follow science while opening up

For the past two weeks, China has locked down Shanghai, its financial centre. Many of its 26 million residents, confined to their apartments, have complained of acute food shortages. The government has struggled to supply every household with daily necessities, with the supply chain paralysed by China’s stringent measures under which every COVID-19 case, even if asymptomatic, is confined in government-run quarantine facilities. Food shortages are not the only problem. Many have said they are running out of medicines. Children who tested positive have been separated from their parents. The crisis has now ignited a debate on whether this strategy that enabled China to avoid a major second wave, still remains relevant when much of the rest of the world has returned to some form of normalcy thanks to vaccines. China is the only country still closed off from the rest of the world.

Signs are Beijing has no intention of changing course. The official Xinhua news agency on Sunday rebutted criticism over the policy saying “a dynamic zero-COVID approach remains crucial...” and “the repercussions of lowering the guard could be disastrous for... 1.4 billion people, including 267 million aged 60 or above”. With those numbers, it argued, China’s medical system “would risk a collapse”. Chinese officials point to Hong Kong’s experience. After two successful “zero COVID” years that allowed for normalcy, an Omicron outbreak this year led to 8,000 deaths there. Most were unvaccinated elderly residents. Beijing now finds itself in a bind. Opening up, it is feared, would mean many deaths among the elderly who have refused to get vaccinated. However, experts say one major reason for vaccine hesitancy is the “zero COVID” strategy, with the wide perception that risks from vaccines outweigh the risk of catching COVID. Zero COVID, in a sense, has become a victim of its own success. Politics is also as much a factor as public health. For two years, China’s government has hailed its model as a contrast to the West which saw high deaths and continues to tell its population that COVID is a dangerous disease that requires everyone to be hospitalised. Changing course now would not suit that narrative, particularly with President Xi framing China’s COVID response as one of his big legacies. Continuing on the current path, however, will bring rising economic and social costs. Rather than trumpet zero COVID and criticise living with the virus as irresponsible, China would be better served looking at the examples of countries that have successfully opened up and followed the science, as in Singapore, which aggressively vaccinated its population and incentivised it to do so by setting a timetable for opening. Otherwise, as the continued suffering in Shanghai has shown, the cure risks becoming worse than the disease.



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The much publicised reply from Mr. Bhutto to Mrs. Gandhi’s proposal for preparatory talks before a summit meeting between them was received this afternoon after a delay of nearly three days in transmission. The Pakistan President’s letter dated April 9, accepting Mrs. Gandhi’s suggestion for a meeting of special emissaries but leaving the choice of the date and the venue to her, was handed over by the Swiss Ambassador, Dr. Fritz Real, to the Prime Minister’s Principal Secretary, Mr. P.N. Haskar, soon after an embassy courier had brought it from Islamabad. It is now India’s turn to suggest the date, place and level of representation and settle the remaining details for the proposed meeting of the special emissaries which is expected to take place before the end of this month, if there are no last-minute hurdles. As far as India is concerned, it is prepared to have these talks either at a semi-political or strictly official level to suit Pakistan’s requirements.



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The study suggests that the media does matter, and that long-term exposure to “agenda-setting” news can skew opinions. More importantly, it signals that the silos in which people find themselves, the political camps that threaten to become rigid identities, can be breached.

For at least a couple of centuries, children have been taught that religion and politics do not make for good dinner table conversation. A recent addendum to that rule is that these subjects are best avoided on social media and WhatsApp groups as well. For anyone who has tried to convince a friend or family member to change their political views, this makes perfect sense: Almost always, no one changes their mind. Yet, it turns out, that even in these polarised times, there may be some hope for common ground.

Political scientists David Broockman and Joshua Kalla, from the University of California, Berkeley and Yale University paid 300-odd Fox News loyalists — largely elderly Caucasian men — in the US (Fox is a conservative media organisation) to watch CNN for a month. The news cycle at the time was dominated by Covid, Black Lives Matter and the Biden Administration’s functioning. The findings were surprising: Exposed to different facts and a perspective unavailable on Fox News, the subjects did indeed change their mind.

The study suggests that the media does matter, and that long-term exposure to “agenda-setting” news can skew opinions. More importantly, it signals that the silos in which people find themselves, the political camps that threaten to become rigid identities, can be breached. Does this mean, then, that it’s worth trying to convince the rigid uncle, the bigoted cousin, the young liberal certain of his own righteousness that there may be some merit to other people’s points of view? That’s the hope.

This editorial first appeared in the print edition on April 13, 2022 under the title ‘The possible middle’.



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Argentina’s warships were in their home ports or patrolling their mainland coasts as a British blockade of 321 km around the Falkland Islands went into effect.

Argentina’s warships were in their home ports or patrolling their mainland coasts as a British blockade of 321 km around the Falkland Islands went into effect. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Alexander M Haig seeking to avert a war over the islands held talks with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Haig told reporters he had brought from Buenos Aires “Some ideas which have been developed on the basis of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 302,” which calls for Argentine withdrawal from the South Atlantic Islands and a peaceful resolution of the dispute.

Poll Tie-ups

The BJP national executive is in favour of an alliance with the Lok Dal for the coming state assembly polls. It hopes to fight the elections in Himachal Pradesh on its own. This consensus emerged at the Bharatiya Janata Party’s executive. However, a final decision on the party’s strategy will be taken on April 13. It is believed that in Kerala and West Bengal, the party will keep equidistance from the leftists and the Congress. As regards Haryana, the mood in the party was for an alliance with the Charan Singh-led Lok Dal, and not the Devi Lal-led splinter group.

Zia Talks Peace

Pakistan President Zia-ul-Haq said that there was no deadline for the resumption of the postponed Indo-Pak talks. “We want to improve relations with India on the basis of sovereignty, dignity and honour,” he said.

New Punjab Governor

M Chenna Reddy has been appointed Governor of Punjab. He succeeds Aminuddin Ahmed Khan. Reddy hails from the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh has held important positions, including CM, governor of UP and Union Minister of Steel.



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Although India-US differences on European security are front and centre today, the convergence of their interests in the Indo-Pacific is deep and enduring. Modi and Biden are right in their determination to minimise the former and build on the latter.

At their virtual conversation on Monday night, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden navigated carefully between two competing narratives that have defined the bilateral discourse on Ukraine. For Delhi, it was about unacceptable pressure on India to stop buying oil from Russia; it was also about affirming India’s right to pursue its own interests. The narrative in the US and Europe, in contrast, was about India defying global norms by helping Russia circumvent sanctions. The engagement in Washington this week — which saw Modi and Biden give guidance to the so-called two plus two dialogue of their defence and foreign ministers — helped clarify that India was not violating any sanctions by its oil purchases. The US has also made it clear that it is not demanding an end to India’s oil acquisition from Russia but urging Delhi not to ramp up its purchases. Given the limited share of Russian oil in Indian imports — barely two per cent — grandstanding in both capitals was unnecessary.

The divergence between India and the US on Ukraine, however, goes beyond oil. India has taken a while coming to terms with the political backlash in the West against Russia’s resort to war in the heart of Europe. Long accustomed to viewing Europe through Russian eyes, India was unwilling to pronounce on the unacceptability of the Russian invasion. But Delhi has made steady adjustments to its position, by coming out more clearly in recent days against the Russian violation of the UN charter and international law, and for Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty. At the talks with Biden, Modi did not name Russia but raised concerns about the Bucha massacre. For the US, the crisis has provided an opportunity to understand India’s inability to take a more forthright approach to the Russian invasion, especially Delhi’s dependence on Moscow for weapons as well as the imperative to prevent Russia from getting too close to China. Biden offered to help reduce India’s strategic dependence on Russia, and welcomed India’s humanitarian assistance to Ukraine. Modi and Biden also explored potential Indian contribution in addressing global food shortages triggered by the Ukraine war.

Meanwhile, the two plus two talks revealed wider dimensions of the bilateral relationship — the expanding areas of engagement are highlighted by the agreement on Space Situational Awareness that will let India and the US share information on the growing activity in outer space. Although India-US differences on European security are front and centre today, the convergence of their interests in the Indo-Pacific is deep and enduring. Modi and Biden are right in their determination to minimise the former and build on the latter.

This editorial first appeared in the print edition on April 13, 2022 under the title ‘Ukraine and beyond’.



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A constant simmer between communities may keep the political pot boiling but when it spills over, the cost of violence and mistrust is too high. For, there’s no real progress without a settled peace.

There’s a dismal pattern to the communal violence that erupted, across states, on the occasion of Ram Navami last Sunday. These were some of the shared features: A religious procession, sometimes armed; provocative slogan and song; stone-pelting; viral videos, from both sides, that inflamed by what they showed and what they hid; delayed or inadequate or partisan police response; curfew. From Karauli in Rajasthan to Khargone in MP, from Khambhat and Himmatnagar in Gujarat to the Baina area of Vasco in Goa, from Howrah’s Shibpur in West Bengal to Lohardaga in Jharkhand — the anatomy of violence was similar. Violent conflict also broke out on campus in the capital’s Jawaharlal Nehru University between two groups of students, one alleging muscle-flexing over non-vegetarian food and the other blaming it on obstruction of a religious ritual. These incidents were reported from states ruled by the BJP as well as by the Congress, TMC and JMM. It is the job of each state government to ensure that those who break the law are held to account. Yet, as the party that rules the larger number of states and the Centre, and that is seen to embolden the majoritarian assertion that underlies this flaring of tensions, whoever may cast the first stone, the BJP must pause and consider if this is where it wants to go.

In BJP-ruled Karnataka, which has seen the same simmering, and where controversy has broken out on the hijab, Muslim traders in temple areas, and halal meat, one of the BJP’s own has now sounded the alarm. BS Yediyurappa advised Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Monday to “put an end to all this (divisive politics) and focus on the job at hand”. It may have been easy for the BJP to dismiss the concern when Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar Shaw articulated it recently — she urged the Karnataka CM to resolve the “growing religious divide” lest it should hurt the state’s leading position in the technology and biotech sectors — but it will hopefully heed the voice within. Surely, the party that has proved its electoral dominance has the political room to acknowledge that the festering unease framed by incidents such as those on Ram Navami undercuts “good governance”. The BJP must see the growing dissonance in a nation that is, on the one hand, rallying its resources to emerge from the Covid shadow through a successful vaccination programme and by shoring up the slow stirrings in the economy, and on the other, carrying the cross of a constant vulnerability to tensions between communities rising to the surface, disrupting the peace.

Admittedly, conflict between majority and minority has not been created by the BJP — it has a longer life and several complicities. It is also true that in a shrill discourse saturated, and polluted, by social media images and posts, it’s easier to hurt than to heal. And yet, it is clear that the BJP, by its words and silences, especially in government, provides political support to those who would deepen the divides. The party has made a long journey — from the margins to the centre of the polity. To build on its success, it must now own its moment of reckoning: A constant simmer between communities may keep the political pot boiling but when it spills over, the cost of violence and mistrust is too high. For, there’s no real progress without a settled peace.

This editorial first appeared in the print edition on April 13, 2022 under the title ‘A constant simmer’.



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Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu writes: Sri Lanka’s president must be held accountable for its economic and governance crisis.

The unprecedented economic crisis in Sri Lanka has led to a serious, ongoing crisis of governance. The country has no dollars, no access to international markets for finance, record-breaking depreciation of the rupee, spiralling inflation, 13-hour power cuts and shortages of fuel, gas, drugs, milk powder and other essentials. All of this has been brought to a head by the massive and spontaneous street protests by ordinary citizens with one simple message – President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his family must go. They must leave politics and be held accountable for the money they have stolen. They are lacking in both capacity and integrity as far as governance and government are concerned. People have defied the emergency and curfew — now withdrawn — to protest.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s slide into ignominy has been fast. In November 2019, 6.9 million voted for his presidency, followed in August 2020 by his party winning a two-thirds majority in the parliament election. Then came the Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution, removing all checks and balances on the exercise of presidential power and authority. His government shrank the tax base and decided to turn agriculture away from chemical to organic fertiliser overnight, resulting in serious disruptions to the food supply.

As the early signs of the crisis appeared, Rajapaksa’s government adamantly refused to go to the IMF to restructure Sri Lanka’s debt. The country continued to pay its international sovereign bonds, which make up the bulk of its dollar-denominated debt, receiving bail-outs from India, China and Bangladesh in particular and ran out of dollars for the import of essentials. In the wake of the protests, the President has decided to go to the IMF. Sri Lanka will have to pay almost $ 7 billion annually for the next three years in sovereign bond payments with foreign exchange earnings from tourism and tea having already suffered due to the war in Ukraine, in addition to the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2019 Easter Sunday atrocity which killed over 250 civilians.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidential bid was announced on the heels of the 2019 Easter bombings. He projected himself as a strong, decisive leader who, as defence secretary under his brother President Mahinda Rajapaksa, defeated the LTTE and was thus well placed to tackle other forms of terrorism and extremism. His legitimacy was sanctioned by the Buddhist clergy and the army where he had served. Rajapaksa brought into his administration a host of technocrats and retired and serving army officers. They were put in charge of the pandemic management and appointed as secretaries to ministries. They were also appointed to a number of presidential task forces to look into the restoration of ancient Buddhist sites and to oversee his One Country, One Law programme. The task forces are widely seen to target the minority communities — the One Country, One Law task force is headed by a Buddhist monk who was charged with contempt of court but pardoned by the president. Gotabaya Rajapaksa has taken a firm stand against the accountability of members of the forces for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity and vowed that the heroes in the fight against the LTTE will not be turned into war criminals. In addition, a series of cases of corruption and rights violations against officials of both Rajapaksa regimes have been dismissed.

The question now is: Will Rajapaksa resign? What happens if he does and what happens if he does not?

Rajapaksa is fighting for his survival. He will lose any immunity from prosecution that he enjoys as head of state and the government that succeeds him will likely accede to the public sentiment of holding him and his associates accountable for corruption as well as war crimes.

Given the dire economic situation and fast-dwindling foreign exchange reserves, the president and the Opposition have to act fast. He has to write to the IMF, formally seeking assistance, and their board, in turn, has to agree and inform the Sri Lankan government accordingly. Once the agreement is in hand for debt restructuring, Sri Lanka can obtain bridging finance from the World Bank and access the international markets.

As far as the people are concerned, the issue is about the president. Any government he heads will lack credibility and legitimacy. Consequently, his attempts to form an interim government made up of all parties will fail; so too would any attempt to allow him to go into exile and escape accountability. Opposition parties have rejected his invitation to join the government and now he has lost even a simple majority in parliament.

According to the constitution, he can hold a presidential election in 2023 if he decides to stand for a second term. He can be impeached, but this is a lengthy process. Intensified and sustained public protest can force him to resign. Then the parliament can move immediately to appoint his successor, seal an agreement with the IMF, abolish the executive presidency which fosters autocracy and move to a presidential election.

For all of this to happen, the Opposition must agree. There are too many among them who harbour presidential ambitions. They must understand the gravity of the situation and think beyond their interests.

Sri Lanka seems to be going the way of Greece. There are severe structural problems in the economy that have to be rectified — they include a bloated public service and massive loss-making state-owned enterprises. The Rajapaksas did not create the economic crisis, apart from the tax cuts, but they certainly aggravated and grossly mismanaged it.

Their greed and ineptitude have brought Sri Lanka to its knees. They have brought themselves to their final reckoning. The protests will and must continue. They must be peaceful and guard against infiltration by the regime to create a law and order situation which could prompt the military to act.

Time is of the essence.

This column first appeared in the print edition on April 13, 2022 under the title ‘Rajapaksa’s reckoning’. The writer is the founder Executive Director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, Colombo



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Binit Priyaranjan writes: In blaming ‘cancel culture’, Russian president Vladimir Putin is borrowing from the playbook of conservatives in the West.

“Today, they are trying to cancel a thousand-year-old country,” lamented Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking in a televised meeting with major cultural figures earlier this month. He was referring to several events involving Russian cultural figures who have voiced their support for the war being cancelled, especially in the West, since Russia invaded Ukraine.

One of those cancelled is Valery Gergiev, general director of the St Petersburg Mariinsky Theater and a friend of Putin’s, who was present at Friday’s meeting. While most of the cancelled figures are alive, a small minority of the events cancelled included pieces by deceased icons such as Tchaikovsky — performances of the composer’s pieces were cancelled in Italy, Japan and Croatia. However, that didn’t stop Putin from drawing the spotlight to it in his speech. “They’re now engaging in the cancel culture, even removing Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Rachmaninov from posters. Russian writers and books are now cancelled,” he said.

Since its introduction into mainstream popular culture through college campuses and social media around half a decade ago, “cancel culture” has become a raging issue in the culture war in the West, sharply dividing conservatives and left-liberals. It has become an umbrella term that has different meanings according to who you ask but its essence remains a collective boycott and de-platforming of individuals, corporations or institutions for actions collectively deemed inappropriate or offensive.

Cancel culture itself has been called out for “cancelling” free speech, bullying, and a mob mentality. Depending on the offence and the extent of punishment meted out, cancel culture has been called everything from a “distraction” to a “hyperbolic phase of the larger culture war”, to America’s “free speech problem”.

Looking at the issue through the prism of conservative opinion provides insights into Putin’s remarks and the message behind them. Right-wing groups have increasingly portrayed cancel culture as emblematic of a far-left ideological hysteria rooted in “outrage culture”, fuelled by groupthink and authoritarian mob justice. Donald Trump, no stranger to calls for cancellation, made it a central talking point in his presidential re-election campaign in 2020, calling his impeachment trial “constitutional cancel culture” and cancel culture “totalitarian”.

He is by no means alone. More than half the delegates at the Republican National Convention 2020 mentioned cancel culture as a menace, and conservative state governments have sought to pass legislation seeking to curb it in the US. These groups see cancel culture as an indication of mob justice by moral zealots on the far-left, colloquially called “social justice warriors”, who weaponise social media to punish and hurt anyone, whether comic, writer, professor or scientist, for daring to breach a moral orthodoxy under the guise of “political correctness”.

As the political-cultural faultlines in the West have widened, the attitude to cancel culture has become a line that now sharply divides liberals and conservatives. It is in this sense that Putin invoked the term, comparing the West’s treatment of Russian culture to Nazi Germany’s burning of books. These portrayals depict the person, institution, or in this case, the country being cancelled as the victim.

Putin hinted at this in his singling out of J K Rowling, who was “cancelled” for her views on transgenderism — a topic still very much on the fringes of the public conversation outside the West. “Recently, they cancelled the children’s writer Joanne Rowling because she – the author of books that have sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide – fell out of favour with fans of so-called gender freedoms,” he said. The Moscow Times, while reporting on Putin’s speech, quoted former president Dmitry Medvedev describing the West’s “frenzied hatred” as being pushed by the US to stoke “Russophobia” as part of what the Kremlin calls a “special military operation”.

With comments on cancel culture, Putin is giving a dog-whistle to conservatives and hard-right groups in Russia and around the globe, including the West. It should be seen as an effort to put a distortionary spin on the cultural and social sanctions imposed on Russia as a result of his actions since the invasion of Ukraine, and level the same charges against the West legitimised by their own conservative leadership and intellectuals.

Further evidence of Putin borrowing from the American conservative’s playbook is the overblown portrayal of the “cancelling” of Russia visible in his referring to Russian writers and books being cancelled as if they were boycotted en masse. These are the same exaggerated terms in which mainstream US right-wing news media such as Fox News usually portray cancel culture’s image and reach.

Noam Chomsky talks about how the true meaning of “socialism” never really reached the common masses because the two largest propaganda machines, the US and the USSR, had both peddled distorted definitions of the term. From Donald Trump’s rhetoric in the US presidential election to Putin’s reference to the term, political divisions around “cancel culture” have also reached their apogee. We must be wary of its use to spread misinformation and shift the blame for the due consequences of waging war on a sovereign country.

This column first appeared in the print edition on April 13, 2022 under the title ‘The culture front’. Priyaranjan is a researcher and writer



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Anamika writes: The impact of the Common University Entrance Test is likely to be harsher on disadvantaged sections of the society for whom access to higher education is seen as the only route to upward mobility.

A glance at the admission policy for undergraduate programmes internationally indicates that most advanced countries have an examination for entry into institutions of higher education. The introduction of the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) can be seen as a step in the direction of aligning India with international standards. Of the 48 central universities, 45 seem to have the requirements to institute the test. The CUET is going to decide the fate of approximately 1.3 crore students for roughly 5.4 lakh undergraduate seats in 45 central universities. The system comes into effect this year and it’s important to evaluate its possible ramifications on students, teachers, curricula and the educational ecosystem.

The UGC’s rationale for introducing the test is to address the disparity in the allocation of marks by different examination boards, and provide a “level playing field” to students from different sections of society and diverse regions. It’s now well-known that leniency in the evaluation systems of some boards gives a section of students an unfair advantage over others in getting admission to reputed universities and colleges. The CUET has been envisaged as a corrective. The question, however, is will the new exams ease the pressure on children in a society that attaches great significance to board examinations. The marks obtained in the board examination will remain vital for admission to state and private universities as well as job applications. The students will now have to contend with two examinations.

Many educationists argue that the new examination is likely to give an impetus to coaching classes. In a marks-driven culture where rote learning is the norm, new cramming strategies will be developed to crack the entrance exam. Coaching and private tuition will flourish without much concern for quality in the preparation of the study material. The CUET syllabus will be based on NCERT (under the Ministry of Education) textbooks even though not all state boards prescribe these books. A large number of textbooks published by the state boards and private publishing houses are prescribed by schools in different parts of the country. But it appears that the schools that prescribe only NCERT textbooks will be better off and the regulating authority will have more control over the test, especially at a time when plans are afoot for a change in textbooks. The coaching industry stands to take advantage of this situation and students will have a hard time navigating two sets of textbooks. The impact is likely to be harsher on disadvantaged sections of the society for whom access to higher education is seen as the only route to upward mobility.

The teachers of state-governed and private schools would be pressured to address a range of issues emerging out of a newly-introduced competitive examination. The “status” of a school will now depend on the number of students “cracking” the CUET examination and getting into the top central universities.

While trying to address the issue of “parity” in marks, our education planners have ignored a more fundamental issue that requires immediate attention. The Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) is constantly increasing for higher secondary education (51.4 per cent according to UDISE, 2019-20) and higher education (27.1 per cent to AISHE, 2019-20). The figures indicate that higher education has acquired a mass base in the country. This has important implications for a knowledge-based economy and society. Maintaining the momentum of GER would require more teachers, schools and higher education institutions of quality and slow down the rush for a few but highly sought after universities and colleges. The new examination would put additional pressure on both students and teachers at a time when they are trying to overcome the exactions of the pandemic. It appears to diverge from the objective of the National Education Policy-2020 — equitable access to good quality higher education for all students.

This column first appeared in the print edition on April 13, 2022 under the title ‘Not an equaliser’. The writer is associate professor of education at IILM University, Gurugram. Views are personal



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Rajat Kathuria, Isha Suri write: Its use as a tool for market development must balance consumer protection, innovation, and competition.

In February, Facebook, rebranded as Meta, stated that its revenue in 2022 is anticipated to reduce by $10 billion due to steps undertaken by Apple to enhance user privacy on its mobile operating system. More specifically, Meta attributed this loss to a new AppTrackingTransparency feature that requires apps to request permission from users before tracking them across other apps and websites or sharing their information with and from third parties. Through this change, Apple effectively shut the door on “permissionless” internet tracking and has given consumers more control over how their data is used. Meta alleged that this would hurt small businesses benefiting from access to targeted advertising services and charged Apple with abusing its market power by using its app store to disadvantage competitors under the garb of enhancing user privacy. However, privacy experts have welcomed this move because it is predicted to enhance awareness and nudge other actors to move towards more privacy-preserving options, leading to a market for “Privacy Enhancing Technologies”. Google’s Privacy Sandbox project is a case in point, though it remains to be seen whether it will be truly privacy-preserving.

Competition, or should one say, frenzy, among the few in the Big Tech space has been the subject of immense polemic on the one hand, and serious research on the other. One standout feature has been the increasing, perhaps exclusive, focus on non-price factors such as quality of service (QoS) in general and privacy and acquisitions in particular. For example, acquisitions by Big Tech are regular and eat up big bucks, not always to promote efficiency but to eliminate potential competition, described evocatively as “kill zone” by specialists. According to a report released by the Federal Trade Commission, between 2010 and 2019, Big Tech made 616 acquisitions.

In the absence of a modern framework, competition law continues to rely on Bork’s theory of consumer welfare which postulated that the sole normative objective of antitrust should be to maximise consumer welfare, best pursued through promoting economic efficiency. Market structure thus became irrelevant and conduct became the sole criterion for judgement. With retail price losing gloss on digital platforms where one side of the market is ostensibly “free”, conduct now predominantly revolves around QoS which, like much else surrounding digital platforms, is pushing competition authorities to fortify their existing regulatory toolkits.

We ask two questions in this article. The first, largely rhetorical, is whether privacy can be viewed as a method of non-price competition or, in other words, as a QoS issue. The second is whether a market-based approach to regulating privacy has any serious merit. The fact that privacy is being assertively brandished as a differentiator by certain digital platforms should settle the response to the first question. For example, companies such as Apple and DuckDuckGo (with its slogan “the search engine that doesn’t track you”) are employing enhanced user privacy as a competitive metric. Interestingly, this is not as recent a phenomenon as Facebook would have us believe. When Facebook entered, it presented itself as a privacy-centred alternative to MySpace, which was the first to market by committing to user privacy through a policy that stated — “We do not and will not use cookies to collect private information from any user”. This was in 2004.

Although it seems like ages ago, Facebook initially gave users the ability to opt out of having their information shared with third parties, including advertisers and marketers, and did not collect information about users from third parties. Between 2004 and 2012, Facebook showed remarkable commitment to its promise of user privacy. Its behaviour as a monopolist, after competitors such as Orkut had exited, was quite different. In 2014 it did a volte-face, exploiting its market power to degrade privacy to dubious levels.

It has been shown that “websites which do not face strong competition are significantly more likely to ask for more personal information than other services provided for free”. In 2018, OECD accepted that privacy is a relevant dimension of quality despite the low quality that may be prevalent due to lack of market development. That brings us to the second and perhaps more critical question, whether a reasonably well-functioning market for privacy can be created. We are in no doubt that such a market will be subject to severe market and government failure, but that’s not the point. Almost all markets are subject to failure. Regulators across the globe are recognising privacy as a serious metric of quality. For instance, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) in 2021 took suo moto cognisance of changes to WhatsApp’s “take-it” or “leave-it” privacy policy that made it mandatory for every user to share data with Facebook. In its prima facie order, the CCI inter alia observed that this amounts to degradation of privacy and therefore quality.

We can no longer afford to undermine the role data plays in modern markets. Privacy and competition have overlapping boundaries. On the one hand, if privacy becomes a competitive constraint, then companies will have the incentive to create privacy-preserving and enhancing technologies. On the other hand, care must be taken so that Big Tech, aka the gatekeepers in the EU’s Digital Markets Act, do not misuse privacy to create barriers for newer entrants. To provide context, restricting third-party tracking is not novel and other browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft’s Edge have already done so. But Google, which owns 65 per cent of the global browser market, is different. By disabling third parties from tracking but continuing to use that data in its own ad tech stack, Google harms competition. Accordingly, in 2021, the UK’s competition authority (CMA) investigated Google’s Privacy Sandbox project over concerns that it would make online advertising more concentrated. Thereafter, Google consented to legally binding principles that forbid self-preferencing. It also pledged to apply these principles globally.

The use of privacy as a tool for market development, therefore, has to tread this tightrope between enabling and stifling competition. It will be hard. But, at the least, regulators would need to eschew a compartmentalised approach to market development. An approach that balances user autonomy, consumer protection, innovation, and market competition in digital markets is a real win-win and worth investing in.

This column first appeared in the print edition on April 13, 2022 under the title ‘The quality of privacy’. Kathuria is Dean, School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Shiv Nadar University, and Suri is Senior Researcher at The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS). Views are personal



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Janaki Nair writes: The garden of peace that the celebrated Kannada poet Kuvempu had described is threatened by a politics that wants to render Muslims invisible.

Once upon a time, before its steep descent, Karnataka was hailed by its celebrated poet Kuvempu as “Sarva janangada shantiya thota” (A garden of peace). In most picturised YouTube versions of what has become the “state song”, the token stanza in Kuvempu’s poem has been further submerged under unmistakably Hindu images — of temples, Bharatanatyam dancers, and Kannada Mathe, a clone of her National Mother. Was Kuvempu naïve or mistaken in unselfconsciously assuming that the Hindu umbrella was merely a benign cover?

Not a day has passed over the last two years when the determination to reduce the Muslim to “bare life” has not been announced. Having successfully reduced the Muslim presence in the legislature to seven MLAs (or 3 per cent, the same as the proportion of women in the House), assaults have been made on religious life and livelihoods. In his most recent call to “end the monopoly of Muslim fruit traders” in Karnataka, the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti’s Chandru Moger finds a novel solution to the unemployment crisis. From the exclusion of Muslim traders at temple jatres, a micro-economic aggression has been amplified by invoking the spectre of a “spitting jihad” — and the boycott is now well underway.

In any encounter, a Hindu can do no wrong, and the Muslims must always prove their innocence. Home Minister Araga Jnanendra’s public withdrawal of his accusation that a road rage death was caused by the victim’s refusal to speak Urdu succeeded, despite strenuous police denials — a CID probe has been announced by the chief minister. Muskan’s spirited response against her tormentors in college over the hijab issue has now been linked to an international conspiracy. Instead of investigating the murder of Harsha, a Bajrang Dal worker of Shivamogga, which even the minister in charge of the district had first declared was due to personal enmities that arose between those with whom he shared time in jail, the young man was made into a Hindutva “martyr”. Clearly, that was not enough. The 10 Muslims charged with his murder had to be persecuted under the UAPA as anti-national conspirators, making bail impossible.

Will Karnataka arguably become the first state in India where the hydra-headed “outfits” — as they are euphemistically called — rule the state? It would be a grave error to view these actions as the foreplay of elections. These organisations today wield direct, visible and undeniable power over elected representatives, while being assured of freedom from accountability. There is nothing shadowy or indirect about their campaigns. Every issue which has emerged of late — ranging from the question of hijab in classrooms, namaz in public places, azaan, the ban on Muslim traders at jatres — has been vigorously pursued to render Muslims invisible, a goal that the political establishment, the media and the police appear increasingly eager to meet.

Indeed, this is nothing short of a “harmonious” project for establishing Hindu Rashtra by the Bajrang Dal, the Sri Rama Sene, the VHP, and their parent outfit. What began with the passage of swingeing laws — relating to cow slaughter in 2020, the regularisation of unauthorised (read Hindu) religious structures on public property, or proposed changes to “conversion” laws in 2021 — has now turned into daily, state-approved assaults on the faith, beliefs, lives and livelihoods of Muslims. Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s response to every communal provocation (beginning with his “action/reaction” statement against Christians in Mangalore) is to restate his obedience to the men who rule the streets. He has even taken the unprecedented step of granting state compensation of Rs 25 lakh to the family of Harsha. He has, despite warnings by former Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa and MLA S R Vishwanath, declared his commitment to the neo-nation.

When the staff at two police stations — Kaup in Dakshin Kannada and Vijayapura in Bijapur — flaunted saffron clothing on Vijayadashami day in 2021, they went unpunished, in ironic contrast to the insistence on uniforms in classrooms. Reports are now emerging of police refusal to file a case against Chandru Moger, citing possible disturbance to communal harmony, though they move with harsh alacrity against those protesting these alarming and unchecked communal actions. They too have publicly declared their allegiance to the neo-nation.

The media crowned its ongoing service to the Hindu cause when it confronted Muslim students and teachers wearing hijab to educational institutions on camera, following the interim order of the high court in February 2022. Like the police, a section of the media systematically targets those who protest the deterioration of public peace and harmony. The judiciary has remained a timid presence, protecting the legislators and the administration from “disruptive” protests.

How did Karnataka succumb so quickly to this corrosive masculinity? In a state which had no history of “cow protection” or high decibel campaigns against “the abduction of women” comparable to the Indo-Gangetic belt from the 1920s, what led the Ram Sene’s Raichur unit to announce its “Love Kesari”? The RSS worked hard over the last 100 years to achieve its goal of polarising people on Karnataka’s west coast, home to economically successful Muslims and Christians. But what of the rest of Karnataka, where a mixture of fear and enthusiastic participation by the majority seems to have achieved the same effect? What accounts for the new and passionate righteousness in the language and gestures of the men, and some women, who participated in the harassment of Christian prayer groups last year, or willingly wore orange shawls in February this year?

Hindu Rashtra has become the sole visionary future for legions of young people. The giddy sense of psychic empowerment from staging this muscular, militant masculinity, compensates for the impotence arising from a gnawing awareness that education alone is no longer the guarantee of social mobility or indeed jobs. It arises from the impotence of conceding that Kannada’s rich heritage is today no more than exhausted cultural capital, given the popular demand for English, the growing acceptance of Hindi, and increasing state support for Sanskrit. The “outfits” performative violence is emboldened by the utter disarray among those social groups, and within those social movements — the Dalit Sangarsh Samiti, the farmers’ and the women’s movement – that had made Karnataka the site of novel social justice and development measures in the recent past. The brief flicker of a pushback by Dalit men wearing blue shawls in Chitradurga at the height of the hijab protests simply vanished. Karnataka’s network of socially progressive Lingayat mathas, which have functioned like alternative governments in their respective regions, have either preferred to retain their autonomy, and tacit support of Hindutva, or have openly supported the “outfits”. Political opposition in the state has also been silenced.

So the token halt on April 16 by the Karaga procession at the Tawakkul Mastan Dargah, during Bengaluru’s most important civic event that celebrates more than two centuries of shared religiosities, will be, like Kuvempu’s song-poem, no more than a haunting memory of better times. But even those memories are endangered today, as the men who make “Nava” Karnataka promise to scrub clean its complex past by putting “moral” science in its place.

This column first appeared in the print edition on April 13, 2022 under the title ‘Once upon a Karnataka’. The writer taught history at JNU



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With the lens now on the XE mutation of the Omicron variant, India’s precaution dose and child vaccination programmes needs to be expedited. Since Sunday when it was opened to all adults, less than 50,000 precaution doses have been administered to those between 18 and 60. A number of states are witnessing slight uptick in cases. This could be a sign that immunity levels are going down and have to be boosted.

SII chief Adar Poonawalla has asked GoI to reduce the gap between booster doses from nine to six months. This would immediately help cover a large proportion of the active workforce with boosters. GoI must scale up testing and genome sequencing alongside commissioning another national serosurvey to gain a better understanding of the current situation.

Read also: Reduce time gap for Covid vaccine booster dose to six months months, Serum Institute to govt

The detection of Covid infections in three schools in Delhi NCR has prompted them to suspend classes. This is unfortunate but clusters forming in schools tend to induce panic among parents. Children have already lost over two years of learning to Covid. This calls for scaling up the child vaccination programme to all school going children. This will allow schools to function without uncertainty and avert more setbacks.



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The virtual meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden hours before the fourth India-US 2+2 dialogue reiterated the importance of the overall strategic partnership. This is significant because the two sides remain apart on the Ukraine war and Russia. While Washington continues to insist that it isn’t in New Delhi’s interest to increase energy imports from Moscow, New Delhi has steadfastly stuck to its position of strategic autonomy with the aim of divorcing the politics around the conflict from the horrors of the war itself.

This saw Modi unilaterally raise the Bucha killings and condemn them without assigning blame to anyone. However, there is also no denying that India’s position on the war has been evolving. Its last abstention on the UNGA vote to expel Russia from the UNHRC actually favoured the US resolution. Plus, India has dispatched humanitarian aid to Ukraine and is preparing to do more in this regard at Kyiv’s request. Besides, India’s ties with Russia cannot be amended overnight. This is akin to Europe’s energy dependence on Russia that continues despite several EU nations promising a drawdown.

That said, India and the US have no choice but to work together. Russia’s actions in Ukraine have not only put India in a tight spot but also ensured that Moscow will be Beijing’s junior partner for the foreseeable future. And given that a revisionist China is the biggest threat to the rules-based international order and India’s territorial sovereignty, New Delhi’s and Washington’s interests clearly align. In fact, China’s diplomatic support for Russia at the UN has raised suspicion that Beijing plans to use Moscow to further its strategic agenda in the Indo-Pacific once the Ukraine crisis blows over.

In this context, it’s welcome that the 2+2 dialogue showed understanding of each other’s positions with US secretary of state Antony Blinken recognising that India’s ties with Russia developed at a time when Washington wasn’t able to partner New Delhi. Crucially, Blinken added that Washington had not made a determination to apply CAATSA sanctions on New Delhi for purchase of Russian arms. If India-US ties are to amplify it would require Americans to do more in terms of defence technology transfers. The two sides have now signed a bilateral space situational awareness arrangement and are deepening cooperation in cyberspace. Coupled with the 2+2 joint statement calling on Pakistan to not allow its territory for terrorism, the points of convergence are growing. The world’s two largest democracies ought to be natural partners in upholding the global order.



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India’s telecom regulator TRAI set the tone for forthcoming 5G auctions in a set of recommendations released Monday. The highlight is a pivot from designing the auction as a revenue maximisation exercise for GoI, which was done via resorting to high floor prices and a conservative spectrum usage policy. The emphasis now is on lowering the floor price, or reserve price, for bidders. This should eventually translate into cheaper services. It’s been complemented by liberal conditions on usage and surrender of spectrum. The thrust of the recommendations is in the right direction.

The transition to 5G is unlike anything experienced earlier. It’s an intrinsic requirement to help India’s economic structure evolve. Manufacturing is increasingly based on tools such as AI and machine learning. Therefore, the speed and cost of 5G rollout will have a strong bearing on India’s overall economic competitiveness. That’s why TRAI’s pivot to lowering the cost of the rollout by reducing the reserve price of critical frequencies by up to 40% in relation to what it had recommended four years ago is important not just for telcos but a lot of other industries. These recommendations eventually need the seal of the political executive but the direction set by TRAI is unlikely to change.

However, lowering the cost of the 5G rollout is essential but not enough to ensure that we have an ideal telecom environment. A competitive telecom market is necessary to spur connectivity innovations. India’s telecom market is veering towards a de facto duopoly, with GoI-supported Vodafone’s future capabilities still uncertain. A successful 5G rollout will require commitments that Vodafone may find forbidding. Therefore, GoI needs to be flexible about policy to ensure that not less than three firms are in a position to compete hard. It calls for encouraging more telecom entrants. Foreign players are rightly apprehensive of India’s telecom sector. GoI needs to clear those apprehensions.



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A fiscal correction where capital expenditure crowds out support for consumption at the bottom rung could face pressure as both inflation and growth play truant. The approach of creating jobs while building physical infrastructure takes a limited view of India's development needs. The evolving growth-inflation dynamic suggests income support simply cannot be wished away.

Retail inflation in March continued on its upward trajectory, settling well above the statutory limit provided to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) whose options appear to be shrinking on monetary policy reversal. Market expectations are rising that the central bank may have to begin increasing interest rates as soon as its next policy review in June, and the rate hikes over the course of the fiscal year could be steeper. Inflation based on the consumer price index (CPI) climbed to 6.95% in March after rising by 6.07% in February and 6.01% in January. Core inflation, excluding volatile food and fuel prices, at 6.29% is by itself above the limit beyond which the RBI is answerable for its policy actions.

India has now joined other Asian economies where imported food and energy inflation are complicating policy choices for central banks that were trying to draw out accommodative policies to aid fragile economic recoveries after the Covid- 19 pandemic. Industrial output in February contracted by 4.7% from a month ago, with consumer goods pulling down the overall index. Consumption demand is likely to be affected by a full pass-through of energy prices and supply disruptions for inputs of consumer goods. A revival of consumption demand is critical for an investment-led economic recovery.

If monetary policy shifts its focus entirely to price stabilisation, the onus for growth will be transferred to fiscal measures that have been committed to a calibrated correction. The March inflation numbers are exposing the vulnerability of rural demand. This could lead to a reassessment of welfare outlays announced in the 2022 Union budget. A fiscal correction where capital expenditure crowds out support for consumption at the bottom rung could face pressure as both inflation and growth play truant. The approach of creating jobs while building physical infrastructure takes a limited view of India's development needs. The evolving growth-inflation dynamic suggests income support simply cannot be wished away.

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India must step up efforts to reduce and adapt to climate change, while continuing to push rich countries to do their fair share by stepping up emission reduction and helping developing countries with finance and technology. The temperature is rising, as is woefully evident.

The heatwave across northern India underlines the perils of unchecked global warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) latest report unequivocally warns of worsening impacts if rapid, immediate reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is not undertaken. India is among the most vulnerable countries, even as its share of cumulative emissions is about 4%. Global warming is no longer just a first world problem. In fact, if anything, its impact is being felt most by developing countries.

India's share of annual GHG emissions is rising. At No. 4, it accounted for 7% of emissions in 2020. Development is non-negotiable for India. But it must do so without shooting itself - and the world - in more than just the foot. For this, India needs to shift away from coal, oil and gas and increase its share of renewable energy (RE) use and rapid development of alternatives such as green hydrogen and even nuclear. This requires power sector reforms, particularly tariff - ending cross-subsidy of residential electricity use by commercial users, ending free power and improving market design. GoI must institute the 'no new coal plant' policy recommended by the expert group led by former CERC chairman Gireesh Pradhan on the National Electricity Policy. Measures such as investing in integrated mass public transport aggregate and reduce energy consumption, as does transitioning to electric vehicles (EVs) in autos.

India must step up efforts to reduce and adapt to climate change, while continuing to push rich countries to do their fair share by stepping up emission reduction and helping developing countries with finance and technology. The temperature is rising, as is woefully evident.

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The Governor of Kerala promulgated the Kerala Lok Ayukta (Amendment) Ordinance, 2022, in the first week of February. The move witnessed strong resistance from the Opposition in the assembly. The ordinance seeks to increase the role of the executive in the decisions of the Lok Ayukta.

Section 14 of the Act empowers the Lok Ayukta to direct public servants to vacate their office if the Lok Ayukta is satisfied that the allegation against such public servant is substantiated. Such direction will be confirmed by the competent authority (governor, chief minister or the government of Kerala).

The government’s reasoning to amend the Act was rooted in Articles 163 and 164 of the Constitution. The Lok Ayukta is empowered to direct the chief minister (CM) or minister to vacate their office. This contradicts the "pleasure doctrine" that the CM and minister hold their office during the pleasure of the governor. Even high courts cannot direct the removal of ministers through the writ of quo warranto.

In S Gunasekaran v Ministry of Home Affairs, the Madras High Court held that the CM or minister hold their office during the pleasure of the governor, and a breach of oath or criminal charges would not be grounds for the court to issue the writ of quo warranto. While the argument of the government is valid on the principles enshrined in the Constitution, the outcome of the ordinance is no better.

The ordinance, in substance, has two significant hurdles. First, it reduces the Lok Ayukta to merely an advisory role by subjecting its direction to the competent authority. The ordinance has amended this provision to empower the competent authority to either accept or reject the report submitted by Lok Ayukta after giving the public servant an opportunity of being heard. This has transformed the competent authority under the Act into a pseudo appellate body that may render its decision in three months.

Second, it infringes on the principles of separation of powers. The amended section gives the competent authority the discretion to approve or reject the direction of the Lok Ayukta. The competent authority as defined under Section 2 of the Act is the governor, CM or government of Kerala, in most cases, rendering an adjudicatory role to the executive.

The Supreme Court in P Sambamurthy v State of Andhra Pradesh struck down a constitutional amendment that granted the executive the power to modify or annul decisions of administrative tribunals on the ground that rule of law and judicial review are basic features of the Indian Constitution.

Further, the necessity for the promulgation of the ordinance is questionable in this case. Ordinance making power is one of the most misused provisions of the Constitution. The jurisprudence laid down by the Supreme Court that bars the judicial review of the subjective satisfaction of the governor/president for the promulgation of ordinance is the primary reason for this rampant misuse.

Over the last two assemblies (14th and 15th), Kerala has passed only 150 laws in contrast to the promulgation of over 360 ordinances. Whereas under the previous government of the Congress (13th assembly), 145 bills were passed, and 190 ordinances were promulgated. While the number is better for the 13th assembly, it is not ideal. The number of ordinances remaining higher than bills passed by duly elected assemblies highlights the misuse of the ordinance making power as well as points out the utter disregard of the parliamentary system envisaged under the Constitution.

In defence of ordinances, Ambedkar stated in the constituent assembly that ordinances were not supposed to create a parallel power of legislation. However, the numbers suggest that Kerala has done the opposite. By their very nature, Ordinances work on executive fiat and lack the deliberations necessary for law-making in a democratic setup.

Parliaments and assemblies give the platform for various stakeholders to debate core issues. Committees in duly elected assemblies further this legislative scrutiny resulting in better legislations. These principles must be kept in mind during the legislative stages. The issues of separation of power, the rule of law, hindering the rights of the Cabinet and the procedural necessity of taking the law through an appropriate amount of legislative scrutiny are fundamental to law-making.

The lack of such measures is meant to produce a situation: Two wrongs don’t make a right, as it did in Kerala.

Prakhar Raghuvanshi is a constitutional law honours student at National Law University, Jodhpur

The views expressed are personal



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At this year’s Oscar awards, one of the nominees for Best Picture was Don’t Look Up, where Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence play scientists, desperately trying to warn the public about the impending destruction of the planet. Just a week later, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a grim report, which said that the world’s greenhouse gas emissions need to start falling by the middle of this decade and become half of what they are today by the end of the decade. But current trends show emissions are on an upward trajectory, set to warm the planet by about 3°C by 2100. This will mean a two-thirds increase in the number of days with maximum temperature crossing 35°C, and more than a billion people around the world exposed to heat stress, water stress, and desertification.

For India, the climate crisis is daunting and unfair. Our economy depends on fossil fuels and we are trying to meet the basic energy needs of millions of people. The poorest people with the smallest carbon footprint will be the most vulnerable to extreme and erratic weather. Should one feel an overwhelming sense of fighting a losing battle? Or is there room for hope and new opportunities to build a climate-strong future for our country?

Three key findings of the IPCC report provide reasons for optimism and point to the way forward for India to leapfrog to a cleaner, healthier, and stronger economy.

First, the stunning drop in the costs of solar power, wind power, and batteries — much faster than predicted by experts. The cost of solar electricity fell by 85% in 10 years, making it commercially attractive compared to electricity from fossil fuels. Similarly, lithium-ion battery prices fell by 85% in 10 years, making electric vehicles more affordable and large-scale storage of renewable electricity possible. We need battery prices to fall further. We can also store electricity in the form of pumped hydropower. If the cost of hydrogen electrolysers decreases as rapidly as predicted, renewable power can be used to produce green hydrogen as an alternative to industrial fossil fuel use, or to produce green ammonia, which is more easily stored and transported.

Second, the IPCC report talks about the looming challenge of decarbonising industrial process emissions. In industries such as cement, iron and steel, aluminium, chemicals and plastics, it is not enough to use energy more efficiently, we also need to use materials more efficiently. This requires adopting a circular economy approach, by recycling scrap metal, repurposing construction waste, mixing fly ash in cement, using local materials, and recycling water. This approach can reduce emissions substantially at a negative cost. Moreover, India can turn this challenge into an opportunity by creating new circular economy jobs, particularly for recycling battery minerals since India has limited domestic reserves.

Third, the IPCC report imagines new kinds of cities: Compact, walkable, and cool. It finds that integrated spatial planning and transit-oriented development can reduce urban energy use by a quarter. India can meet the growing energy and infrastructure needs of its cities by using the right construction materials, enforcing green building codes, shifting to public transport, and making room for nature, including wetlands, mangroves, and trees. Instead of building heat-trapping concrete jungles, such green cities can provide thermal comfort, reduce pollution, sequester carbon, and let water percolate underground.

Globally, the IPCC report finds that the economic benefits of mitigating the climate crisis will exceed the costs of doing so. In other words, reducing greenhouse gas emissions will pay for itself, in the form of fuel savings, reduced oil import bill, better health and productivity due to improved air quality, and avoided damages due to climate disasters. For India, the challenge now is to find the upfront capital investments to reap the benefits of becoming a climate-strong economy.

Ulka Kelkar is director, climate programme, World Resources Institute India The views expressed are personal.



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BR Ambedkar’s lessons for contemporary constitutionalism comprise the most tangible aspects of his legacy. At its core are his persistent efforts to get special rights and safeguards entrenched in the Constitution for oppressed social groups. Ambedkar believed that in an unequal society such as India, protecting the rights of oppressed social groups couldn’t be left to those in power. For him, special safeguards in the Constitution to recognise and protect these rights was a prerequisite for the peaceful working of a democratic nation. He believed that in the absence of such guarantees, those in control of social and political power would undermine these rights on a daily basis. As he noted in the Constituent Assembly on November 4, 1948, “Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil, which is essentially undemocratic. In these circumstances, it is wiser not to trust the legislature to prescribe forms of administration.”

To this effect, Ambedkar ensured that special rights in the Constitution are explicit and clear, so that they’re not left to the interpretation of judges or the executive. For example, the initial draft of the reservation provision asked the State to make “provision for reservations in favour of classes not adequately represented in the public services”. Ambedkar wanted the clause rephrased to provide reservations “in public services in favour of classes as may be prescribed by the State”. He argued that if the words “not adequately represented” were retained, any reservation for a group would be open to challenge on the grounds that the particular group was already adequately represented — indicating that he wanted to firewall reservations from judicial scrutiny and legislative vagaries.

Ambedkar argued that special rights prevented a political democracy from being subverted by the governing class. To him, reservations were another name for what the Americans called “checks and balances”. Such rights provided “a firm flooring” to oppressed communities “against the possibility of their being pressed down by the governing classes by reason of their superior power,” he believed. The principle of separation of power in Ambedkar’s conception thus applies not only to separation between different organs of the State, but also to sharing power equally between different social groups. Ambedkar’s goal was to prevent society and State institutions from erasing those rights.

Eventually, Ambedkar was only partially successful. Due to his non-negotiable stand, the Constitution provided for reservation in the legislature, jobs and education for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. But the political framework suggested by him for the rights of religious minorities was not considered by the Constituent Assembly. Ambedkar felt that oppressor castes gave reservations “a bad name in order to be able to hang those who are insisting upon them” — and not as a general principle of political participation. A particularly interesting case was the debate around reservation for women in the Constituent Assembly, where the women members — only one of whom was Dalit — unanimously rejected political reservations or any special safeguard. As the Gandhian Renuka Ray from Bengal said on July 18, 1947, “Women have been fundamentally opposed to special privileges and reservations… of seats for women… it is an impediment to our growth and an insult to our very intelligence and capacity”.

The consequences of having few women and religious minorities in positions of political power have been consistently felt since Independence and there have been only indifferent efforts to increase the political participation of these communities — think of the women’s reservation bill that has languished in Parliament for decades, in the absence of any coherent political consensus. In the decades since, many oppressed communities — such as women, denotified and nomadic communities, religious minorities, including pasmanda (lower-caste) Muslims and Dalit Christians, and transgender people — have asked for the framework of reservation to demand their due share in power structures. Ambedkar’s experience shows that without providing explicit safeguards to these communities, it cannot be assumed that the situation would change automatically for them.

This need for full and meaningful participation of marginalised communities in the nation-building process has been expanded in a new book titled The Dalit Truth: The Battles in Realizing Ambedkar’s Vision edited by K Raju. Scholars Sukhadeo Thorat and Raja Sekhar Vundru rely upon Ambedkar’s ideas to suggest the addition of rights and safeguards in the constitutional framework to enhance equal participation of socially oppressed groups.

They argue that his concerns about the dangers of excluding some communities and belief that true feelings of democracy cannot be birthed without the creation of a fraternity of people unaffected by caste cleavages remain alive today. For a country to endure and thrive, not only do all of its citizens need access to social and economic justice but also full participation in the political process — a leap for a country that was traditionally riven by caste divisions and colonialism.

To guarantee such a transformation, Ambedkar placed his faith in the Constitution, which he believed could “put a limit on the power of the governing classes to have control over the instrumentalities of government”. To continue his vision demands the expansion and evolution of current constitutional discourses to provide an equal share in power to all oppressed communities by redesigning the political system.

Anurag Bhaskar, an alumnus of Harvard Law School, is assistant professor, OP Jindal Global University, and a recipient of the Bluestone Rising Scholar Award 
The views expressed are personal



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Interests determine the resilience of inter-State relationships. Ensuring interests are not adversarial lays the foundations. Finding and nurturing common interests help build ties. And managing contradictions, when interests collide, sustains it.

In a demonstration this week, realists in Delhi and Washington focused on areas where interests converge, bridged differences where they did not, and let go where the gulf was too wide to bridge.

Distilled to the core, what interests drive India and the United States (US) closer? Both want a China which does not behave like a bully. For Delhi, this is a matter that goes to the heart of its territorial integrity and sovereignty as well as its regional ambitions; for the US, it goes to the heart of the international order it has led for eight decades, its global leadership and its core economic interests. Working together may not guarantee a China that behaves itself, but not working together will incentivise Beijing’s belligerence and leave both Delhi and DC with a weaker hand.

Both want more jobs for their people. For India, this means tapping into American capital and luring it to make in India, picking American technological know-how, ensuring that American doors remain open for Indian talent, and crafting trade arrangements that benefit Indian producers and workers. For the US, it means capitalising on the gigantic Indian market, ensuring that India becomes more, not less, hospitable for American capital but doesn’t take away American jobs, and crafting trade arrangements that benefit American producers.

Both want to ensure that they are prepared for the dramatic shifts the world is about to see in the next few decades. New technologies have already altered the way we live, consume, work, travel, and communicate, and will continue to do so. They are also changing the ways in which adversaries are undermined and wars are fought. Delhi and Washington don’t want Beijing to control the norms and architecture governing this new landscape. The climate crisis will create an existential challenge, the scale of which the world has not seen. India needs American help with tech and financing, and America needs India to set and meet ambitious targets to make up for the developed world’s past sins.

And that is the rationale behind the Joe Biden-Narendra Modi chat and the 2+2 dialogue focused on these core interests where India and the US see more benefit in working together than being on opposing ends.

Indo-Pacific, Quad, diversification of supply chains, collaboration on space, defence and Artificial Intelligence all stem from the China threat. A political commitment to deeper economic ties helps in sending a message to stakeholders on both sides. And the US’s recognition of its historic responsibility in contributing to the climate crisis, coupled with India’s willingness to act constructively, opens doors. There are differences in each of these domains, but similarities outweigh differences.

What about interests which don’t fully overlap, but don’t clash either? Ukraine falls in this category.

First, despite what so much commentary made it sound like, India and the US are not the ones fighting each other. But, of course, they are not on the same policy page.

In terms of the conflict endgame itself, the US wants a much weaker Russia, preferably without Vladimir Putin in charge, and curtains on Russian territorial ambitions. India can see Russia will be diminished but doesn’t share DC’s glee about the prospect. Delhi believes there is no threat to regime stability, it is also concerned about Moscow’s challenges giving Beijing an advantage, including in their shared Central Asian periphery.

In terms of expectations, the US has wanted India to condemn Russia, reduce its economic engagement, and scale back its defence ties. Delhi has wanted Washington to give it space and time to make its own choices.

So what did the two countries do? India believes that the war is bad, sovereignty is important, the killing of innocents is wrong, the war’s consequences harm global stability, Ukraine needs help, and peace is essential — with Modi smartly saying all of it in public to Biden.

By then, Washington, as its measured approach showed, had already concluded there was no point in investing all its diplomatic capital to push India to name Russia as the aggressor, when chances of success were low and backlash were high. It also realised that pressure may not be needed, for circumstances may anyway, eventually, force India to make economic and defence choices the US is hoping that Delhi does. American policymakers used the Indian statement on Bucha and humanitarian support to Ukraine to tell their hawkish domestic constituency that India’s position had evolved.

A common language was found for the joint statement. A serious geopolitical minefield was navigated with care, with leaders on both sides recognising each other’s imperatives, giving a little, and keeping a little in reserve for the next round of diplomacy, an inevitability as the war continues. That will require a new set of adjustments. But this week showed resilience. And this was possible because neither side wants to actively hurt the other’s interests on an issue on which they may not have identical views. They are willing to build convergences when possible. And they are focused on the real challenge of the future. Security and power calculations prevailed. Realists won.

The views expressed are personal



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Methane is an invisible gas that can significantly exacerbate the climate crisis. It is a hydrocarbon that is a major constituent of natural gas used as fuel to run stoves, heat homes, and also to power industries. Methane receives much less attention than carbon dioxide, but it’s recently been in the news because of the conflict in Ukraine and due to new research on leakage of the gas in the Permian Basin — a fossil fuel-rich part of the United States (US).

Right now, the invasion of Ukraine has led to a major spike in natural gas prices. Russia is one of the leading exporters of natural gas to the rest of Europe. Around 40% of the natural gas used in the European Union originates in Russia, most of it coming through pipelines. Russia also supplies substantial coal and oil.

In the short term, this spike in prices might lead European nations to seek out coal to run plants. But in the medium- to long-term, there could be a faster transition to wind, solar, and even nuclear energy. Europe has plans to reduce natural gas dependence on Russia drastically before next winter.

Like coal and oil, natural gas is a fossil fuel. In the hierarchy of fossil fuels, natural gas is seen as a lesser evil than coal. In addition to the emission of greenhouse gases, the burning of coal also leaves particulate pollutants. Many countries have been using natural gas as a “bridge” energy source on the road to renewables. But how much better natural gas is than coal in terms of emissions depends on how much methane escapes during the course of extracting, shipping, and using natural gas.

Methane can be thought of as a thicker blanket than carbon dioxide — one that is capable of warming the planet to a greater extent in a shorter period. It traps more heat than carbon dioxide: Some estimates say around 80 times more in 20 years. So, methane has an immediate effect on warming the planet. However, unlike carbon dioxide which remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, methane exerts its warming effects for roughly a decade.

We know that methane is rising in the atmosphere, but there’s no consensus among scientists on how much methane is coming from various sources. Whenever companies drill for natural gas, methane is vented out. Much of the methane being released is due to “ultra-emitters”, which spew out copious amounts of the gas.

There are also biological sources of methane. Nearly two decades ago, I worked out important biological steps in how methane is made from some organic compounds by methane-generating microbes known as methanogens. Many different methanogens have been isolated from various natural environments where little or no oxygen is present. Such environments include wetlands, landfills that are not well vented, and submerged paddy fields. Cows also belch out methane.

Fugitive emissions of methane from gas, coal, and oil sites are contributing to the climate crisis, but the extent of leakage of this potent greenhouse gas has been difficult to determine. Methane leakage occurs at every stage of the supply chain from extraction and transport to use in homes and industries. Helicopters, planes, and drones armed with infrared cameras, and satellite images have all shown that methane is leaking from the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico in the US.

A new study in the journal Environmental Science & Technology has estimated that over 9% of gas production in the Permian Basin is leaked as emissions, in contrast to the 1.4% predicted by the US Environmental Protection Agency. Scientists at Stanford University used airborne sensors to detect leaking methane. They flew over every major oil and gas production facility in the Permian Basin, covering more than 26,000 wells in 115 flights over 16 months. Aerial surveillance was able to capture emissions across a larger area than might be possible from the ground.

Quoted in an article in The New York Times covering the new findings, Amy Townsend-Small at the University of Cincinnati (who did not contribute to the Stanford study) said, “If this result is similar in other basins — which we don’t know if it is — that would eliminate the greenhouse gas emission savings of the coal-to-gas transition.”

At COP26 in Glasgow, over 100 countries signed an agreement to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030. Methane might be easier to deal with than carbon dioxide (which is more deeply embedded in the global economy). But controlling methane emissions will require further scrutiny of its sources. To this end, satellites that will track methane leakage have been planned; one of them, MethaneSAT is scheduled for launch later this year.

Anirban Mahapatra, a scientist by training, is the author of COVID-19: Separating Fact From Fiction

The views expressed are personal



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Sikkim will soon have a separate department for non-performing babus. Chief minister Prem Singh Golay announced this while addressing a meeting of entrepreneurs in Gangtok. It wasn’t an April Fools’ Day gag, in case you are wondering but said with some seriousness, and in the presence of some very senior babus.  But those in the know say that this is not the first time that Mr Golay has expressed his exasperation with bureaucratic apathy.

Last year, an extensive drive was conducted against officials reporting late for work in government offices and the latecomers were reprimanded. But the drive petered out within a month and babus were soon back to their old ways.

However, this time, Mr Golay has a definite plan to discipline the obstinate babus. The government is setting up a new “department of coordination” under the home department with immediate effect, where all engineers, accounts officers, and even the likes of additional chief secretary-level officials, who are known to be lax towards their duties will be transferred. Or sent to Coventry, as the old saying goes!

And to rub it in further, these ostracised babus will not be given official vehicles and other perks they’ve enjoyed thus far, only their salaries. The aim is to separate these employees from those who are efficient and productive.
For a public long resigned to the inefficiencies of the system, it all sounds too good to be true. But it is also hoped that steps will be taken to ensure there is no victimisation of honest workers in the name of improving governance.

Subbarao sparks debate on civil service’s existential crisis

A recent exchange between two former senior IAS officers on the state of the civil service drew some attention in babu circles. Some noted it with dismay and some with concern. It started with D. Subbarao, former RBI governor and former finance secretary, bemoaning that the IAS had turned into elitist, self-serving babus who were out of touch with reality and lost the courage of conviction to stand for what’s right.

The sceptics among the public would say that it has become a sort of a trend for some babus to run down the service and distance themselves from it, of course after retirement and with the wisdom of hindsight. But Mr Subbarao has always been known for his sober views, and what he says cannot be discounted easily. Yet Deepak Gupta, former chairman of UPSC and the author of a serious history of the IAS, wrote a riposte to counter the issues that Mr Subbarao had raised.

Undoubtedly, both views merit study and reflection. It’s not often that two senior babus cross swords over the fundamental issues of administration. Some observers feel that this debate may have been triggered, especially now, by potential changes to the system the government may be contemplating. The coming weeks and months will likely clear the air.

Netagiri beckons babu?

A little bird tells us that Haryana IAS officer and whistleblower Ashok Khemka, recently promoted to chief secretary grade, could dip his toes into politics. It appears that a party with national ambitions after having tasted success recently is now keen to create a space for itself in Mr Khemka’s cadre state.  

The whistleblower is best known for canceling Robert Vadra’s illegal land deal in Gurgaon and having run into trouble with politicians across the board. He has been transferred 54 times in 29 years by various state governments after he exposed corruption in the departments that he had served. The forever-in-transit officer is even the subject of a bestselling biography detailing his checkered career, which can be viewed as either exemplary or a cautionary tale!

Will Mr Khemka cross over to the other side, as is being whispered by some observers? If he does, he certainly won’t be the first babu to do so — or the last! We’re waiting with bated breath.



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Fifty-eight years after it split from the original party and the beginning of its existence as the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in 1964, the party is in a crisis. It is as aware of its predicament now, at the end of the 23rd party congress, as it was in 2018 when the 22nd party congress got over in Hyderabad.

The CPI(M)’s prescription in 2022 was the same as the prescription in 2018 — that it is faced with a crisis of revival and it is conscious that its task is to “be in the forefront of the fight against Hindutva communalism”. The difference over four years is the crisis of existence has deepened and the space for the Left and the CPI(M) in particular has shrunk even more, because the BJP has grown stronger and confidently and aggressively occupies more of the middle ground in Indian politics today than ever before.

Re-elected for the third term as party general secretary, Sitaram Yechury is tasked to deliver a miracle. Boxed in by inevitable conflicts intrinsic to an organisation that is run on the basis of collective leadership, it will be difficult for Mr Yechury to deliver on the party’s mission. The party has shrunk even more since 2018, when the tasks it set itself were about the same and the political terrain was almost as hard baked in favour of the BJP as it is today. In 2004, the CPI(M) had 44 Members of Parliament in the Lok Sabha. In 2022, it has a mere three. The party has lost over one lakh members in just two states — 68,000 cadres in West Bengal and 47,000 cadres in Tripura. Kerala is its only outpost at present.

The marginalisation of the CPI(M) and the Left as a whole, as well as the decimation of the Congress, has transformed India’s political terrain. Political terrains, especially in electoral democracies, however flawed, autocratic and populist they may be, are book-ended on the one side by right-wing political parties and on the other by the Left, creating a middle ground that is occupied by political parties that are neither one nor the other.

The flimsier the CPI(M) has become as the Left book-end, so too has the Congress declined, as the party of the moderate middle, or the median voter, who is neither an ardent bhakt nor a devout comrade. The reshaping of the political space between 2014 and now pits the hard right-wing, identity-based, communally divisive, majoritarian politics of Hindutva of the BJP embarked on its mission to convert the Republic of India into a Hindutva Rashtra against small and regional parties with no specific ideological moorings, except a shared and common goal of defeating the BJP and protecting their turf from its encroachment. The Congress and the CPI(M) and its Left partners have removed themselves to the periphery. This is an unstable equilibrium; if indeed this can be described as an equilibrium.

The CPI(M)’s revival is contingent on the party’s revival in West Bengal. That is unlikely in the foreseeable future and the CPI(M) knows it.

Having identified the BJP as its enemy number one and prioritising its isolation and defeat as the key political goal, the CPI(M) has given Mr Yechury some leeway in siding with the Congress and forging the “broadest possible unity of the secular democratic forces.” Neither the identification of the BJP as the principal enemy nor the Congress as a potential ally is unconditional; in West Bengal, the principal enemy is confusingly Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress. In Kerala, the principal challenge is the Congress.

Local compulsions do not make it easier for potential allies to join forces with the CPI(M), which has all sorts of purity and pollution issues with not only the Congress, but with small and regional parties, which are essentially populist in character, with no specific ideological moorings.

Its squeamishness about potential allies is no longer viable; it is not the party it was at the end of the 20th century. In 1996, when the prime ministership was offered to Jyoti Basu by a collective of non-Congress, anti-BJP parties, the CPI(M) was a political force to reckon with. It had worked to establish itself as a successful party that believed in principled politics, which gave it leverage and enabled it to anchor the United Front experiment in 1996 and then again as the lynchpin of the United Progressive Front led by the Congress in 2004.

The populist politics of the smaller and regional parties with whom the CPI(M) hopes to create a broad secular front have no particular ideological agenda. What they do have is first-hand experience on being allies in complicated coalitions at the Centre, which makes the CPI(M)’s lack of experience a serious shortcoming. Consequently, making sense of the CPI(M)’s fastidious ideological concerns is difficult for these ruling parties closely linked to the grassroots, all of whom have cannibalised the Left’s agenda and stripped the alternative programme of its most powerful appeal. By implementing policies that promise to deliver social justice and access to goods and services that enable the population to improve the quality of their lives, the regional and smaller parties have effectively appropriated the CPI(M)’s brand.

What then does the CPI(M) have to offer to make itself desirable as a political partner? In the tradition of Harkishen Singh Surjeet and Jyoti Basu, Sitaram Yechury is a leader respected by all political parties, but the CPI(M) is not what it was in its heyday. It is perceived as a party that cannot lead itself out of the morass of its failures in West Bengal and Kerala and even Bihar. However effective it is in playing a leadership role in the Samyukta Kisan Morcha, which held the farmers movement together for one year, its political decline is what matters for the regional and smaller parties. These are parties that are preparing to fight for survival against the BJP’s One Nation-One Party hegemonistic plans and a larger space in Indian politics. They are up against the BJP, which has converted its Hindutva appeal into the dominant discourse of the middle ground and the choice of even median voters.

Unless the CPI(M) can convert its prescriptions into an alternative secular, democratic and progressive narrative that compels the median voter to reimagine his or her identity as an Indian, instead of a Hindu and an Indian, it will languish as an inadequate partner with no particular appeal.



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The reports emanating from Washington have it that India has not only made its independent stand on the Ukraine war known but also succeeded in justifying its actions thus far. It is moot whether a few million barrels of Russian crude are worth more than taking an unequivocal stand on the morality of invasions and war. There is a moral equivalence to India’s stand but it did condemn the atrocities in Bucha without naming the aggressor though calling for an independent probe meant the perpetrator had been named. This may have mollified the US after President Joe Biden had admonished India on its “shaky” stand earlier.

Significantly, the US seems to have been satisfied that strategic and trade ties, considered to be historically high currently, can be taken even further considering there are far bigger issues like the geopolitics of South Asia and the Indo-Pacific and India’s role in it as a member of Quad. The bonhomie at the highest level of interaction between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Biden represents a victory for diplomacy and as well as an acknowledgement of India’s place in global affairs. Washington did, however, leave it to those just below the President to tell India off at least for its human rights violations and certain discriminatory practices.

The US message regarding the need to go easy on purchase of Russian oil may have been countered cheekily by the foreign minister’s comment on how much European countries are buying “in an afternoon” as their daily purchases were surpassing a billion euros a day even in April. But India must consider issues beyond energy security interests, primarily that the US and the West were far bigger trading partners with their markets representing vital geo-economic interests India cannot ignore. Nor can India get sucked as a minor player in a China-Russia axis in the name of resisting the sanctions of the West on a warmonger in Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

The worldview of all nations may be narrowly focused on the Ukraine situation now but the most positive outcome of the 2+2 ministerial dialogue held on the same day as the Modi-Biden virtual meeting was the promising offer of the US, conveyed by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, to treat India as a valuable strategic partner with whom it shares democratic values. The key phrase may have been “times have changed” for the US seeking to be an able and willing partner across commerce, technology, education and security.

The strength of the bond of future ties may be determined by whether India recognises that times have indeed changed or keeps harping on its dependence on Russia for its security needs. Also, the economical values of Russian arms purchases cannot be the sole reason to compromise strategic autonomy. The question of the purchase of S-400 missiles getting a US waiver is still hanging and it may test the emerging strong ties.

The offers made in the 2+2 dialogue call for quicker evaluation and decisions more than the cleverness of a couple of days’ supply of cheap crude which entail higher cost in refining. India is at a crossroads so far as redefining its relationships and balancing its strategic neutrality against its geo-economic interests. Drawing conclusions from a study of the larger picture might serve the long-term objectives better. The criticism of Democrats on human rights should be taken in stride and not be allowed to cloud geostrategic judgement.



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All those who believe in the institutions and processes of democracy but rue their fast degradation can take heart in the statement of Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla that laws must be enacted only after thorough debate and discussion. The Speaker made the observation, underscoring the fact that laws ought to incorporate the needs of the aspirational sections of society at an important forum: the India region conference of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association the other day. Mr Birla also noted that India offered an effective, accountable and living example of a functioning democracy and that the world looks at us for directions.

The Speaker’s words must be taken seriously by both the government and the Opposition not only at the Centre but also in states. Indian democracy has thrived basically because the highest law-making bodies — whether they are the two houses of Parliament to the state Assemblies — have represented every section of society, and hence resonated with their aspirations in all the possible hues. The government of the day would get its business done but not before it is put to scrutiny.

But the system is now witnessing a change, for the worse. The Lok Sabha which Mr Birla presides over has witnessed the sight of key legislation that has the power to alter the destiny of the people being passed in a huff. The law that abrogated Article 370 was passed in a day in both houses of Parliament; the three bills that sought to rewrite the Indian farming system were never allowed to go through the usual motions, causing the agitating farmers to later reject the offer of the government to discuss it clause by clause. That discussion should have happened in Parliament, they had told the government. In a way, the Speaker was articulating the very same position, though in a different way. The legislature must return to its original business: discuss, debate and legislate.  The Speaker’s plain speaking must have its resonance in all the legislatures, lest they are stripped of their role in democracy.



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