Editorials - 25-02-2022

Startups can create high-quality jobs, which have a flywheel effect, but their mandate is not job creation

India has added over 10 unicorns (privately held startup companies valued at over a billion dollars) so far this year, which is a rate of nearly one every five days. This comes after a record year of new unicorns (44 in 2021), which pushed India up to the third place globally, after the U.S. and China, in the Hurun Global Unicorn Index 2021. But what exactly does a unicorn valuation mean for the larger economy, and how do these technology-driven startups influence the employment scenario in the country? Thillai Rajan and P.K. Jayadevan discuss this question in a conversation moderated byP.J. George . Edited excerpts:

India has added 10 unicorns in just over 50 days this year, which is the highest rate so far for the country. What do you think are the fundamental reasons for this high rate now, and is it sustainable over time?

Thillai Rajan:I was looking at the unicorns that have emerged from India so far, and the number seems to be 91. The first unicorn emerged in 2011. From 2014, the number started to grow. In 2020, we had 10; and in 2021, there were 44. I’ll give another example here: In 1953, two people climbed Mount Everest. Today, we have 500 to 600 every year. Becoming a unicorn is, in some cases, like scaling a summit.

The first unicorn in India was InMobi. It took the company about five years to achieve unicorn status in 2011. The second unicorn was Flipkart. That company also took about four to five years to achieve unicorn status. Hasura, which is the latest unicorn, also took about five years. Hence, the process of becoming a unicorn has not eased. But it [unicorn status] has become a big motivator for entrepreneurs, and it’s a summit that they would all like to scale. More and more entrepreneurs are aiming for unicorn status and this is one of the fundamental reasons, from the demand side, for the higher numbers.

Now, look at it from the supply side. Unicorns are essentially venture capitalist-funded companies, which have reached a $1billion valuation. If you look at the growth in venture capitalist funding, between 2011 and 2020, the compounded annual growth rate was 76%. Over 10,000 companies were funded in those 10 years, and people expect this number to grow because of the potential in the economy. The growth might taper off over a period of time, but it is going to be there. A proportion of these companies are going to become unicorns. Hence, when the base is increasing, the number of unicorns is also going to be increasing.

Now, let’s look at the environment. January 16 has been named as National Startup Day. If there is national priority in terms of identifying, sustaining, supporting and recognising startups, that is going to lead to an increase in numbers; more unicorns are going to come.

However, the growth rate in the number of unicorns between 2020 and 2021 was in excess of 300% and that is unlikely to be sustained. In the financial markets, everything is in terms of cycles. We had the largest number of IPOs in 2007, that is 108. In 2010, there were 66 and in 2021, 63. In between these years, there were some very deep valleys. The same is going to be the case with unicorns as well.

If you look at the number of industry classes that we have in India, there are about 302 as per company registration. These industry classes represent very strong areas of economic activity. If on an average we take that there is a potential for three unicorns to emerge in each of these industry classes, we are talking about 1,000 unicorns. That is a strong potential for the growth to continue. It may not be the strong growth that we see today, but there will be growth as long as the country’s economy is growing and venture capitalist funding is growing.

P.K. Jayadevan:When Professor Rajan was talking about Mount Everest, it reminded me of an example that we used to talk about at Freshworks, the Chennai-based company that went for IPO last year. We kept talking about how Roger Bannister ran the four first four-minute mile many years ago and then we saw many more people do it. Now, you have more experienced coaches, and the ecosystem is more supportive. That is pretty much what is happening now in the startup space. Companies that are solving real problems with real customers should be the real winners. As for the unicorn valuations, they are outcomes of bets that venture capitalists submit, and they understand the risks involved. The valuations can go up and down since they have a lot to do with macroeconomic factors, cost of capital, demand, and supply. But fundamentally, good companies are being built out of India, and that’s why you will see valuations going up, and when it is north of a billion, we have a unicorn.

I just want to add a few things to what Professor Rajan said. First, India is an open market with a fairly stable democracy, and having startups as a national priority is a big headwind. There are some kinks that need to be ironed out, but the fact remains that it is one of the largest markets in the world. Second, we have great data penetration. The cost of accessing the Internet is very low these days, and the consumer base has become very big. The hope is that someday, all of these consumers will add up to a domestic market, which is big enough for these startups to make windfall returns. It means the startups will essentially tap into that consumer base using digital technologies. Third, we saw some really good IPOs in the last few years. Zomato and Freshworks are great examples. Underlying all these companies is great talent building high-quality technology products that are being adopted by enterprises and consumers. So, a huge amount of venture capital will come into India. In 2006, there were maybe three or four funds, which would hesitantly back some companies after due diligence of six months or eight months. Nowadays, you see cheques being cut over WhatsApp messages.

I’m not an economist, but the view is that there was a little bit of quantitative easing in the U.S. and interest rates have been kept low. Liquidity in the market led to asset price inflation and stocks went up. Even cryptocurrency, a risky asset, went up. As the cost of capital became cheaper, more venture capital happened. ‘What do we do with these funds? Hey, here is the great Indian open market with support for startups, and great talent. Let’s deploy it here.’ In India, I suspect there is a little bit of a race [among venture capitalists] to provide funding for good companies, and that’s probably why the valuations are sort of being pushed up.

What do you think will be the impact of the startups on the country’s employment scene? How do you think startups will change the nature of employment?

PKJ:Directionally, it is true that startups have created jobs. Freshworks started with a few dozen employees and by the time it went public, there were 3,000. With that IPO, about 500 people became ‘crorepatis’. I personally know of dozens of people who have gone out and started their own companies with team sizes of five to 10. Many of them have enough capital and they understand the market. So, the hope is that they will create high-quality jobs and it will become a virtuous cycle. These are niche, high-paying jobs and in the larger scheme of things, the numbers may not be high. But these are high-quality jobs which have a flywheel effect, which means employees will start their own companies or invest in newer startups and riskier ideas, and make bolder bets on innovation.

The question of mid-level, white collar jobs has been around for a long time. Automation will shift some of these jobs elsewhere, but I wouldn’t say it’s killing those jobs. In a country like India, which has access to the Internet and the global market, it is a net positive as we can participate in this labour market as it becomes more and more remote.

TR:What is the mandate for startups? It is essentially innovation and growth. Through innovation and growth, they are able to create an impact. To achieve this growth and ability to innovate, startups take the help of technology or people. There are some startups which will really take the help of a lot of people, like food delivery aggregators. There are certain startups where growth will result in substantial job creation. There will also be certain startups which are largely technology-driven, where the employment opportunity might not be very high, but if the startups are going to result in growth, this can, as Jayadevan put it, have a flywheel effect, which can create a lot of employment either directly or indirectly.

But the mandate for startups is not really in terms of creating jobs unlike what the government does or a public sector enterprise does, where job creation is an important metric. For a startup, it is a metric that is useful but it’s probably not a target.

Having said that, we also need to see where the requirement is. Job creation is an important requirement for economic growth. Jobs are like a pyramid, which is always broader at the bottom. We need to be creating more jobs at the bottom so that the pyramid is stable. If startups are creating more jobs at the base of the pyramid, they are then catering to the requirement of the hour.

Do you think that the Indian startup sector is overvalued?

TR:In financial markets, asset prices are very dynamic and sentiments can play a very important role in valuation. When sentiments are good, the valuation seems to be on the higher side. There is a dominant view that asset prices today are inflated, not just for startups but in the overall stock market. I think I would subscribe to this dominant view that the asset prices today do not reflect true values, but then that’s the nature of the financial markets.

I think angel investors and high net worth investors looking to invest in startups are very aware of the risks and cycles of the stock markets and these valuations and will be able to bear it. They will understand the risks of these valuations because many of them are knowledgeable investors.

PKJ:I think there is froth in the market. But venture capital is risk capital, and people who allocate a portion of their wealth into venture capital understand the risks well. I think we also underestimate the genius of the markets. They know exactly which companies are just fiction and which companies are actually churning out profits and having good cash flows. Companies that don’t have great fundamentals will be weeded out. There are no two ways about it. If there is no path to profitability, if there is no cash flow being generated, then you are looking at companies that have not fundamentally discovered a business model or a problem that they really want to solve, even after being in existence for many years.

These are high-quality jobs which have a flywheel effect, which means employees will start their own companies or invest in newer startups and riskier ideas, and make bolder bets on innovation.

P.K. Jayadevan



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An order that does not accommodate Russia’s concerns through genuine negotiation cannot be stable in the long term

The commencement of Russian military action in Ukraine brings down the curtain on the first act of a bizarre drama that has been playing out over the past eight months. At the heart of it is the instability in the post-Cold War security order.

The first act began with a meeting between U.S. President Biden and Russia’s President Vladmir Putin in June last year, promising to reverse seven years of relentless U.S.-Russia acrimony. Mr. Biden’s decision to reach out to Mr. Putin signalled a U.S. geopolitical rebalancing, seeking amodus vivendi with Russia and disengagement from conflicts in Europe and West Asia, to enable a sharper U.S. focus on domestic challenges and the external challenge from its principal strategic adversary, China.

These were Putin’s terms

Mr. Putin saw this reengagement as an opportunity to revive Russia’s flagging economy and expand its freedom of political action globally.

However, he wanted this engagement on equal terms. Russia would cooperate in this geopolitical rebalancing if its concerns are met, so that it does not constantly have to counter moves to probe its territorial integrity and constrain its external influence — which is how Russia sees the strategic posture of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and U.S. policies.

Russia has repeatedly articulated its grievances: that NATO’s expansion violated promises made prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union; that Ukraine’s accession to NATO would cross Russia’s red lines; and that NATO’s strategic posture poses a continuing security threat to Russia.

NATO’s expansion as a politico-military alliance, even after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, was at the U.S.’s initiative. It was intended to temper European ambitions for strategic autonomy from the sole superpower and to counter Russia’s resurgence. Recent experience shows it may not be succeeding in either goal.

NATO’s weakened glue

NATO countries today span a geography of uneven economic development and a diversity of political traditions and historical consciousness. Moreover, the original glue that held NATO together — ideological solidarity (free world against communist expansion) and an existential military threat — dissolved with the collapse of communism and the Warsaw Pact. There is no ideology to oppose and threat perceptions vary, depending on geographical location and historical experience. This heterogeneity means a diversity of interests. American leadership has normally succeeded in papering over differences, but the growing ambitions of countries is making this increasingly difficult.

The current crisis in Ukraine has illustrated the divisions, and exposed the limitations of the U.S.’s ability to bridge them. The irony is that the divisions are of the U.S.’s making. Its pressure on NATO in 2008 to recognise Ukraine’s membership aspirations and its encouragement for a change of government in Kyiv in 2014, provoked the Russian annexation of Crimea. The subsequent armed separatist movement in eastern Ukraine (Donbas) led to the Minsk accords of 2014-15, which provided for a special status for this region within Ukraine.

Ukraine considers this an unfair outcome, and the U.S. has supported its efforts to reinterpret the accords to its advantage. While some European countries supported this line, France and Germany — which brokered these agreements — have periodically tried to progress implementation, in the effort to break the impasse and resume normal engagement with Russia, which serves their economic interests.

In recent months, the U.S. signalled that it would support the full implementation of the Minsk accords, but apparently found it difficult to shake the entrenched interests sufficiently to make it happen. This may have finally convinced Mr. Putin that his concerns would not be met through negotiations.

Energy security

U.S. interests have also divided NATO on energy security. For Germany, the Nord Stream 2 (NS2) Russia-Germany gas pipeline is the cheapest source of gas for its industry. Others deem it a geopolitical project, increasing European dependence on Russian energy. This argument masks self-serving interests. Ukraine fears the diminution of gas transit revenues, and also that if its importance for gas transit declines, so will Europe’s support in its disputes with Russia. The U.S.’s “geopolitical” argument against NS2 dovetails neatly with its commercial interest in exporting LNG to Europe, reinforced by U.S. legislation for sanctions against companies building gas pipelines from Russia. Increasing LNG exports to Europe is explicitly stated as a motivation for the sanctions. European countries that oppose NS2 are ramping up their LNG import infrastructure to increase imports from the U.S.

The manner in which NATO countries implement the promised harsh sanctions against Russia will demonstrate whether, how much and for how long, this crisis will keep them united.

It is too early to say what Mr. Putin’s endgame is, and how costly this adventure will be, in terms of lives and destruction, as well as in its political and economic impact. Without justifying the manner in which Russia has chosen to “right” the perceived “wrongs”, it has to be said that this crisis results from a broken security architecture in Europe. A sustainable security order has to reflect current realities: it cannot be simply an outgrowth of the Cold War order, and it has to be driven from within. Also, a European order that does not accommodate Russia’s concerns through genuine negotiation cannot be stable in the long term. France’s President Emmanuel Macron has been making this point forcefully, arguing for Europe to regain its strategic autonomy. He has called NATO “brain-dead” and said that Europe, as a “geopolitical power” should control its own destiny, regaining “military sovereignty” and re-opening a dialogue with Russia, managing the misgivings of post-Soviet countries.

Outlook for India

India has to brace itself for some immediate challenges flowing from the Russian actions. It will have to balance the pressure from one strategic partner to condemn the violation of international law, with that from another to understand its legitimate concerns. We were there in 2014, and managed the pressures. As Russia-West confrontation sharpens further, the U.S. Administration’s intensified engagement in Europe will inevitably dilute its focus on the Indo-Pacific, causing India to make some tactical calibration of actions in its neighbourhood. Geopolitics, however, is a long game, and the larger context of the U.S.-China rivalry could, at some point in the not too distant future, reopen the question of how Russia fits into the European security order.

P.S. Raghavan is a former Ambassador to Russia and former Chairman of the National Security Advisory Board



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The siloed approach of ‘agriculture’ serving ‘food security’ needs to give way to a science-society-policy interface

In an effort to spur national and regional action to deliver the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through transforming food systems, the UN Food Systems Summit called for action by governments in five areas: nourish all people; boost nature-based solutions; advance equitable livelihoods, decent work and empowered communities; build resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks and stresses; and accelerate the means of implementation. Such a transformation in the Indian context would involve enhancing interfaces between the spheres of science, society and policy, focusing on sustainability, resource efficiency and circularity.

Mix of science and policy

An active science-society-policy interface negated the prevailing negative atmosphere of the 1960s when the inability to feed a growing population was propounded in two notable books:The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich, and Famine 1975! by brothers William and Paul Paddock. India’s Green Revolution in the 1960s, enabling food security and addressing widespread hunger and poverty, was achieved not only through science and technology and the development of improved high-yielding varieties of rice and wheat but also through policy measures and development of institutional structure. It included a vast agricultural research and technology transfer system at the national, regional, State and local levels. The Training & Visit (T&V) system introduced in the 1970s with World Bank assistance was key to the science-society interface as it established a cadre of agriculture extension specialists at the local level.

Although India is now self-sufficient in food grains production in the macro sense, it has about a quarter of the world’s food insecure people, a pointer to the amount of food necessary to allow all income groups to reach the caloric target (2,400 kcal in rural and 2,100 kcal in the urban set-up). Nutrition indicators have marginally improved over the years. However, macro- and micronutrient malnutrition is widespread, with 18.7% of women and 16.2% of men unable to access enough food to meet basic nutritional needs, and over 32% of children below five years still underweight as per the recently released fifth National Family Health Survey (2019-2021) phase 2 compendium.

India is ranked 101 out of 116 countries in the Global Hunger Index, 2021. Not surprisingly, widespread concerns about poverty, malnutrition and the need for a second Green Revolution are being made in tandem. The country faces the dual challenge of achieving nutrition security, as well as addressing declining land productivity, land degradation and loss of ecological services with change in land use.

Need for ‘transition’

The siloed approach of ‘agriculture’ serving ‘food security’ needs must give way to ‘food systems’ for ‘sustainability’ and ‘better nutrition’ and embrace the range of activities and actors involved in food production, aggregation, processing, distribution and consumption embedded in their socio-economic and physical context.

An important takeaway from the Green Revolution-era is that for science to be relevant to societal outcomes, it has to be planned and executed within the theory of change. The necessary behavioural changes in adopting the improved seeds and practices brought about by the T&V system in the 1960s enabled science to steer the process of change. In the context of the intensifying economic, environmental and climate challenges and crisis, the need of the hour is a good theory of transition encompassing the spatial, social and scientific dimensions, supported by policy incentives and mechanisms for achieving a sustainable, resilient and food secure agriculture. Else Ehrlich’s nuanced prediction, following the success of the Green Revolution, that humanity has postponed its tryst with disaster might come true. A theory of change ought to bring the focus back on sustainability, resource efficiency and circularity as the central pillars towards transforming food systems.

Enhancing sustainability

An agro-climatic approach to agricultural development is important for sustainability and better nutrition. Harnessing the spatial diversity of agricultural production systems adopting the principles of sustainability, resource efficiency and circularity could correct the limitations and unintended consequences of the Green Revolution. These are the loss of indigenous landraces, soil nutrients depletion, groundwater stress, excessive use of agrochemicals and its residual presence in foods and environment, income gap between large, marginal and small farmers, and the gap between irrigated and rain-fed areas.

Data compiled in the agro-climatic zones reports of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and the erstwhile Planning Commission of India reveal enormous potential for crop diversification and precision for enhanced crop productivity based on soil type, climate (temperature and rainfall), and captive water resources. The livelihood of more than half of India’s working population is linked to agriculture and allied activities; the sector has a direct influence on the health and nutrition status of dependent communities. Thus, the focus should be on improving farmers’ competitiveness, supporting business growth in the rural economy, and incentivising farmers to improve the environment. It is assumed that a meticulous review of agro-climatic zones could make smallholders farming a profitable business, enhancing agricultural efficiency and socio-economic development, as well as sustainability.

Keeping policy in mind

Strengthening and shortening food supply chains, reinforcing regional food systems, food processing, agricultural resilience and sustainability in a climate-changing world will require prioritising research and investments along these lines. A stress status of the natural resource base — soil and water in different agro-climatic zones — will help understand the micro as well as meso-level interventions needed with regard to technologies, extension activities and policies. Lastly, infrastructure and institutions supporting producers, agri-preneurs and agri micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in their production value chain are central to the transition.

This should be aligned to the national and State policy priorities such as the National Policy guidelines 2012 of the Ministry of Agriculture for the promotion of farmer producer organisations, and the National Resource Efficiency Policy of 2019 of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. It would encourage a resource efficient and circular economy for production, processing and storage techniques of food products through renewable energy solutions, reduction of supply chains and inputs (materials, water, and energy). It would also ensure the efficient use of by-products, thereby creating value while using fewer inputs and generating less waste for long term and large-scale impact.

Evidence has to be generated not only on the effects of food systems on economic, environmental and social outcomes and their co-benefits and trade-offs but also on understanding the levers of change and how to operate them. Clearly, science, society and policy have a lot to gain from an effective interface encompassing the range of actors and institutions in the food value-chain and a multidisciplinary and holistic approach, along with a greater emphasis on policy design, management and behavioural change.

Manish Anand is Senior Fellow, and

S. Vijay Kumar is Distinguished Fellow and Lead, Food and Land Use Coalition (India) at The Energy and Resources Institute, New Delhi



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Reporters are driven by professional rivalry, but it is collaboration that makes us better at our job

In the cut-throat field of journalism, ‘breaking news’ is the slogan most follow. It is not enough to tell the story well; it is equally essential to be the first to do so. The pursuit of being fast and accurate can get solitary. But occasionally, there come by journalists who make it less lonely with their generosity. Ravish Tiwari, Chief of the National Bureau and Political Editor ofThe Indian Express , was one such journalist. Ravish, who had been suffering from cancer, recently passed away at the age of 40, leaving a permanent void in our lives.

In Ravish’s death, many journalists have lost a sounding board. His curiosity transcended the concrete boundaries between rival newsrooms. I vividly remember the days of the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. I had returned to Delhi after a brief trip to western U.P. and was sitting at the BJP’s headquarters. It was a slow news day. Other than lingering around in party offices, there was not much to do. “What are you doing in Delhi? The mother of all elections is going on in U.P. Go where the news is,” Ravish thundered. I mumbled some excuse in response. But he wasn’t willing to take no for an answer. “Remember, elections come only once in five years. This is your opportunity to get to know India’s granular details,” he said. He made me write an email to my boss. Within 12 hours, I was in Varanasi. A week later, he called. He wanted a detailed report of my trip; he was keen to know about the nuances which may not have made it to my news report.

As we stood around during his cremation, bidding him farewell, many reporters from different publications had similar experiences to share. Even in the days leading to his death, Ravish was busy cheering on those on the field. He would urge reporters to visit specific constituencies. He would then call them to see if his assessment tallied with what they had heard on the ground. He remained engaged till the very end.

For many of us, he was often the first port of call before travelling to an election-bound State. He would be magnanimous with insights. He would help us navigate the complex caste matrix that he knew well. And whenever he didn’t have the answers, he would share the phone numbers of those who could tell us more. This was rare, for reporters are famously stingy with sharing phone numbers. He never saw any reporter as a rival. For him, we were all collaborators. Professional rivalry drives us, but it is collaborative journalism that makes us better reporters.

Ravish adored Parliament sessions. In the last few months, he acutely felt his inability to saunter into Parliament, perhaps even more than the pain ringing through his body after several rounds of chemotherapy. He could spend hours listening to the discourse both inside and outside the House. Ravish was nearly a permanent fixture at the tea shop on the first floor of Parliament House. Reporters and politicians alike flocked to him. He would listen, his eyes wide with wonder, giving politicians the false confidence that they had successfully sold their tales to an unsuspecting audience. But he wouldn’t let anyone run away with the narrative. Often, and quite unexpectedly, Ravish would stab them with a question, twisting it all the way into their gut and smiling all along.

And in a world neatly divided into ideological silos, his biggest fear was that he would get trapped in an echo chamber. This is why he spoke to everyone, irrespective of ideology, region, language and culture. This perhaps explains his pinned tweet, “How difficult it is to listen to the flow of a world of opinions much deeper than the merit of one's own mental frameworks ... Objectivity!” During the 2020 Bihar Assembly elections, just a few months after he was diagnosed with cancer, I remember texting him, anxious about whether I was interpreting voices from the ground correctly. His advice: “Make sure you talk to every community. Talk to as many people as you can.”

It was a a privilege to listen to him and learn from him. Ravish, you will stay with us forever.

sobhanak.nair@thehindu.co.in



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Putin seems unwilling to engageto address Russian security concerns

Russia’s unjustifiable incursion into Ukraine following weeks of military troop build-up on their shared border has drastically raised tensions in the region with broader ripple effects across the world, particularly for NATO countries and others with strategic connections to the two nations. Reports said that several Ukrainian cities, including capital Kyiv came under attack on Thursday morning, even as the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting to stop the invasion. U.S. President Joe Biden and the NATO and European Commission leadership vowed to impose “severe sanctions” on Russia. This round of sanctions will overlay prior economic penalties imposed on Russian entities and individuals close to the political leadership, and they are expected to include cutting off top Russian banks from the financial system, halting technology exports, and directly targeting the Russian President. Moscow can hardly be surprised at this backlash, for it has shown little sympathy toward the idea of engaging diplomatically on the Ukraine question to address Russian security concerns. Ever since Russia began amassing troops on the Ukrainian border, the U.S., NATO, and Europe have sought to press for diplomatic solutions. This includes direct U.S.-Russia negotiations, and French President Macron’s meeting with Mr. Putin.

While the sense of frustration in western capitals over Mr. Putin’s intractability and aggression are palpable, and the use of severe sanctions stemming from that is a strategic inevitability, it is unlikely that the prospect of escalating violence and a devastating toll on human life and property in Ukraine can be ruled out until Mr. Putin’s broader questions on NATO are answered. At the heart of his fears is the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO and NATO troops potentially stationed at the border with Russia. NATO’s historical record, of its penchant for expansionism, has likely fuelled such insecurities. After the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, the Eastern European military alliance, NATO, and Russia in 1997 signed the “Founding Act” on mutual relations, cooperation, and security. Disregarding the spirit of this agreement, NATO quietly underwent five rounds of enlargement during the 1990s, pulling former Soviet Union countries into its orbit. Cooperative exchanges, communications hotlines, and Cold War fail-safes such as arms control verification have fallen by the wayside, even more since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. It may be the case that owing to Mr. Putin’s failure to develop Russia into an economic powerhouse that naturally attracted neighbouring countries and international capital to itself partly explains Moscow’s deflection of attention to strategic questions relating to NATO and Russia’s territorial integrity. But unless western nations give assurances to Mr. Putin that NATO will not seek to relentlessly expand its footprint eastwards, Moscow will have little incentive to return to the negotiating table. But Russia and Mr. Putin must realise that war is not the means to peace and security.



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The use of PMLA against Nawab Malik requires strict judicial scrutiny

Maharashtra’s Minister of Minority Affairs and Skill Development and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Nawab Malik is the second Minister in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance to be arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). The case against Mr. Malik pertains to a transaction in 1999 in which a property was sold to one of the companies belonging to him for a price ostensibly much lower than its actual worth. The Additional Solicitor General alleged that there was enough evidence to make a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The ED has also alleged that the property sale was done by an individual, Salim Patel, an associate for Dawood Ibrahim’s sister Haseena Parkar, since deceased. Mr. Malik’s advocate has argued that the power of attorney for the property sale was made in 1999, much before the PMLA came into force and that there is no retrospective action in criminal law. It should be noted that Mr. Malik has been vocal in his criticism of agencies such as the Narcotics Control Bureau and the way they have conducted investigations against individuals in Mumbai. Unlike the case with former Home Minister Anil Deshmukh, who resigned after his arrest last year, the NCP and its chief Sharad Pawar have ruled out Mr. Malik’s resignation alleging that this is an attempt by the BJP to destabilise the MVA government. It is for the courts to find if there is merit in the ED’s case against Mr. Malik. It has to do so quickly, as this has become yet another political slugfest between the ruling coalition and the BJP.

But there have been several instances where the PMLA has been used by the government at the Centre as a weapon to target politicians from the opposition, their relatives, and activists recently. The PMLA was enacted in 2002 in line with India’s global commitment to combat money laundering, particularly related to crimes involving drugs and narcotics. But as petitions filed in the Supreme Court against the draconian use of the Act have pointed out, the ED conducted 1,700 raids and investigations in 1,569 cases in the last decade (2011-20) but could obtain convictions in only nine cases. This suggests that the agency is using the offences scheduled in the PMLA in an overbroad sense without limiting itself to the chief purpose of the Act. Meanwhile, as the petitioners in the case against the PMLA’s use have argued in the Supreme Court, taking recourse to the Act should not be “arbitrary, vague and fanciful” and the Court must weigh in whether the near blanket powers given to the ED for search, seizure and attachment of assets in several cases are justifiable.



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New Delhi, Feb. 24: The exchange of seriously-wounded and sick prisoners of war will be held to-morrow. According to a Defence Ministry spokesman the two International Red Cross aircraft carrying stretcher-laden POWs will leave Rawalpindi and Delhi simultaneously at 1 p.m. to-morrow. The exchange was scheduled for 12-30 p.m. to-day but fell through as one of the International Red Cross aircraft deployed for the purpose developed engine trouble on its way here from Calcutta. Consequently, it could not proceed to Rawalpindi. However, the defect in the aircraft has been rectified and plans have once again been worked out during the day for the exchange of POWs with the mutual agreement of the Government of India and Pakistan. The two DC-6 Red Cross aircraft are based in Calcutta and used for carrying relief supplies to Bangla Desh. Informed Red Cross sources said the first batch includes 19 Indian and 27 Pakistani POWs. The names of the returning Indian POWs were not released by the authorities till this evening.



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Russia must stop

War has reared its head in Ukraine. It is a dreaded moment for the rest of the world. Counter threats by the United States and the West about economic sanctions may have little impact. The rest of the world needs to unite to arrest any further escalation of the events and prevent the horror of another world war that may cause incalculable disaster in the nuclear era. Saner counsel should prevail.

B. Gurumurthy,

Madurai

The world’s worst fears have come true at a time when every effort was being made to de-escalate the crisis; in this the efforts made by France and Germany must be noted. If NATO comes to the aid of Ukraine, there is every chance that the situation could transform itself into a bigger war. It must be added that the world has not seen a major event of this scale for some time. Time is of the essence and UN intervention with an immediate ceasefire is a must. India should make every effort to get all sides to the diplomatic table.

A.V. Narayanan,

Tiruchi, Tamil Nadu

It is very unfortunate that the Russians have begun a war against Ukraine despite calls for a peaceful settlement through diplomatic efforts. Russia seems to have ignored the situation where the world has still to reach a near-normal state following the havoc caused by the pandemic.

In a globalised environment, happenings in one corner affect stability — as far as peace and the economy are concerned — in other remote parts as well. A rise in oil prices will destabilise the global economy as Russia is a major oil player. Any sanctions against Russia could boomerang. However, if Russia continues to maintain its strident stand for long, it may face a threat of isolation as even its new ally, China, is very cautious in its reaction on the Ukraine issue. Finally, with superpowers calling the shots time and again on how the affairs of the world are to be conducted, the role of the United Nations as a body of standing can be questioned.

V. Subramanian,

Chennai

Russian President Vladimir Putin must be held accountable by the world’s statesmen for the unilateral attack on Ukraine in the interest of saving the region from devastation in what is unwarranted warfare. Unfortunately, there is no sanctity of saner voices from the United Nations. There is no reason why the issues cannot be resolved amicably.

Brij B. Goyal,

Ludhiana, Punjab

India’s new chess hope

Master Praggnanandhaa deserves a pat for his stunning win over world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen. The prodigy’s win underscores the fact that beyond cricket, India can consistently produce world champions in other sports also. The game of chess demands a lot of mental stamina and there is no doubt that the 16-year-old possesses this in abundance. He is another Viswanathan Anand in the making.

R. Sivakumar,

Chennai



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The costs of a prolonged conflict are just too dire, first and foremost in terms of the loss of life and suffering that is already underway in Ukraine. Second, the world is still reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic, which hurt the poorest countries and people the most.

The Russian attack on Ukraine is, unarguably, an assault on the latter’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. In a 24-hour period, Moscow recognised the “republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk in East Ukraine and deployed aerial forces into the country. The attacks, reportedly, are taking place on multiple fronts, including airports and military targets. The conflict is now the largest attack by one state on another in Europe since the Second World War and the first since the Balkan conflict in the 1990s. While Beijing has expressed its full-throated support for Russia, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has condemned the invasion, warned of dire “economic and political consequences”, as well as placed aerial and naval assets on high alert. In essence, Ukraine is now on the verge of becoming a theatre of conflict in a new Cold War. But the world has changed in the last 30-odd years, and both sides — the West and Russia — must defuse the situation as soon as possible.

While there is no justification for the attack, it is important to understand why Vladimir Putin’s Russia is willing to brave severe economic sanctions as well as a military conflict over Ukraine. In the years since the demise of the Soviet Union, Russia’s position has been somewhat comparable to that of Germany post World War I. Much as with the Treaty of Versailles and Germany, Russia stood diminished without the USSR. Its economy was in shambles, national assets sold and national pride dented. The West, for its part, oversaw the eastward expansion of NATO, and by the mid-2000s Russia under Vladimir Putin began to assert itself once again in its neighbourhood with hostile actions in Georgia, Estonia and Ukraine. NATO’s decision to include Ukraine and Georgia on the shortlist for membership only added to Russia’s insecurities and anxieties — which Putin has often played up for domestic political reasons. The 2014 annexation of Crimea had thus far been Moscow’s boldest act — that crisis, like the current one, was justified by Putin on the grounds of security interests and the rights of ethnic Russians in former Soviet Republics. Now, with the invasion of Ukraine, agreements like the Minsk Protocols of 2014, and the Russia-NATO Act of 1997 stand all but voided.

Unlike during the Cold War, though, the global economy is now deeply integrated. The costs of a prolonged conflict are just too dire, first and foremost in terms of the loss of life and suffering that is already underway in Ukraine. Second, the world is still reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic, which hurt the poorest countries and people the most. It can ill-afford a conflict-induced slowdown. It is incumbent on Russia to implement a ceasefire and, subsequently, for both sides to return to the negotiating table. Escalation is not an option.

This editorial first appeared in the print edition on February 25, 2022 under the title ‘De-escalate’.



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For India, which imports around 80 per cent of its crude oil requirement, the risks stemming from higher prices are particularly challenging.

With the conflict between Russia and Ukraine escalating, crude oil prices on Thursday touched multi-year highs, breaching the $100 per barrel mark. The spike in prices is driven by worries of a significant disruptions in supplies — as per some estimates, Russia accounts for one in every 10 barrels of oil consumed globally, along with being the largest supplier of natural gas to Europe. Disruptions in these markets will have adverse consequences on the global economy, affecting both industries and households, dampening the pace of the recovery.

For India, which imports around 80 per cent of its crude oil requirement, the risks stemming from higher prices are particularly challenging. The Economic Survey had projected growth for 2022-23 at 8-8.5 per cent assuming crude oil prices to range between $70-75 per barrel. Elevated crude prices will not only be inflationary but also pose risks on the fiscal front and the external sector. On inflation, according to research by analysts at the RBI, a $10 increase in oil prices could raise inflation by 49 basis points (unless it is absorbed by the government). But while retail fuel prices in India are currently not in line with market prices, post the conclusion of the ongoing state elections, oil marketing companies are expected to hike pump prices. This will increase the risks of retail inflation not moderating in line with the projections of the RBI, limiting the degrees of freedom before the monetary policy committee, unless these price hikes are offset by governments, at both the central and state level, by lowering their fuel taxes. However, doing so will impact their revenues. This will be particularly challenging for state governments who face considerable uncertainty over their revenues once the GST compensation cess ends in its current form in the coming financial year. Higher oil prices will also exert pressure on the current account deficit. As per a report from Kotak Economic Research, for every $10/bbl increase in the average crude price, the current account deficit increases by roughly $17 billion or 0.5 per cent of GDP. The Indian currency will also come under pressure.

The oil market is currently in the midst of a mismatch. As per Crisil, for the past three months, the OPEC countries have not been meeting their production targets “which has influenced prices”. Thus, the longer this conflict goes on, the greater is the upside risk to the price of crude, and greater will be the costs to the Indian economy.

This editorial first appeared in the print edition on February 25, 2022 under the title ‘Crude threat’.



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Does this touching faith in eloquence have something to do with the debating culture at Oxford University, where Khan studied in the early 1970s, and began his charmed life as player and playboy?

You’ve got to give it to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. His government might have just passed a harsh law that can throw social media users and journalists into prison for “fake news”, but his belief in the power of rhetoric — especially his own — appears rather intact. And so, one television debate is all he wants with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi — to resolve differences that have too often brought the two neighbours to war. Or, as the great balladeers of 1990s soppy romance, the boy band Boyzone, would say: “Words are all I have to take your heart away.”

Surely, Khan hasn’t watched TV recently. It is hard to imagine the small-screen gladiators on either side of the LoC — not known for control or restraint in crossing lines — as moderators of peace. Does this touching faith in eloquence have something to do with the debating culture at Oxford University, where Khan studied in the early 1970s, and began his charmed life as player and playboy? After all, in universities across the world, there are enough young privileged men (and women) with the breezy confidence that they only have to marshall facts and dazzling arguments to solve the world’s most intractable problems. Demagogues and populists, too, like nothing more than to anoint themselves the heroes of all stories. Who needs the grunt work of diplomacy and negotiation and conflict management? Let’s settle this, man to man, one on one.

On a Moscow visit as the war on Ukraine unfolds, will Khan be tempted to organise another debate-cum-primetime-peace-mission? That crossing words — and not swords or nuclear buttons — is a great idea is undebatable. But to imagine that tricky geopolitical disputes can be untangled by personal chemistry is not statesmanship. It is to sell the world a lemon. Well at least, there will be lemonade at hand as we watch another edition of the Great Bluster.

This editorial first appeared in the print edition on February 25, 2022 under the title ‘Wild swing’.



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India has decided to defer indefinitely the visit of Foreign Secretary R D Sathe to Islamabad for talks on a no-war pact following references to Kashmir made by Pakistan at the Human Rights Commission in Geneva.

India has decided to defer indefinitely the visit of Foreign Secretary R D Sathe to Islamabad for talks on a no-war pact following references to Kashmir made by Pakistan at the Human Rights Commission in Geneva. According to a Pakistan embassy spokesman, the Indian decision was conveyed to Pakistan ambassador Abdul Sattar by Sathe. India had taken objection to the fact that during a discussion in the commission on countries under colonial domination, Pakistan had compared the situation in Kashmir with that in Palestine and Namibia.

Call for exports

The Economic Survey, presented to Parliament, speaks of “ increasing pressure” on the budget but doesn’t indicate areas where the new Finance Minister hopes to widen his tax net. The survey noted a sharp deterioration in the balance of payments in the past two years and spells out a two-pronged attack — maximum import saving and redoubling of exports — to improve this situation.

Secret meeting

The president of the Uttar Pradesh Lok Dal, Mulayam Singh Yadav, alleged that UP’s Minister of State for Home, Rajinder Tripathi, had a secret meeting with the dacoit, Chhatiram, near the village of a Congress (I) MLA in Mainpuri district.

Antarctica expedition

The Prime Minister declared in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday that, there was no political motive behind the Indian scientific expedition to Antarctica and said India had as much right as any other country to go to uninhabited places. “We do not subscribe to the view that only a few very rich countries have the right to such uninhabited and other places,” Mrs Indira Gandhi said.



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Atishi Marlena writes: As a journalist, he was open, sharp and analytical and as a friend, he was loyal and generous to a fault.

“Ab akhaade mein kood gayi hain, toh kushti toh ladni padegi”, was the advice given to me by Ravish in mid-2018. I had been asked by my party to become the in-charge of the East Delhi Parliamentary constituency and prepare for the Lok Sabha elections in 2019. Having spent much of my time in the Aam Aadmi Party in behind-the-scenes policy work, I was not sure whether I was ready for a transition to electoral politics. As with many difficult personal and political decisions in my life, I turned for advice to one of my oldest and closest friends, Ravish Tiwari.

Ravish and I had been friends since 2005 when as twenty-somethings we had gone to Oxford University as Rhodes Scholars. Even then, Ravish’s passion was to understand Indian society, economy and politics; his sharp and irreverent analysis peppered many weekend dinners where he used to cook tehri for his friends. He talked about going into politics and when the 2007 Uttar Pradesh elections began inching closer, he decided that he couldn’t watch from a distance and needed a ring-side view of the same. He came back to India after completing his Masters in Comparative Social Policy and joined the Indian Express in September 2006. He felt that being a journalist could give him an insight into Indian politics, and maybe even help provide an entry point into it.

He took to journalism with gusto. From his very first beat where he used to cover agriculture and panchayati raj, Ravish hit the ground running. His writing was never constrained by any pre-existing frameworks but based on intensive groundwork into policies and politics. I am not sure when his passion shifted from politics to journalism but interestingly, my own journey from working on education and rural development brought me to India Against Corruption and then the Aam Aadmi Party. Over a lunch in October 2013 in the run-up to AAP’s first Delhi election, I commented to Ravish, “Who would have thought when we came back from Oxford that I – and not you – would be in politics?” His tongue-in-cheek response came within seconds, “If I had joined politics, I would have been in serious politics!” But when AAP won 28 seats in that election, he was the first to concede that he had not spent enough time on the ground in Delhi to assess the political transformation that had taken place.

This is who Ravish was — eager to learn, never embarrassed to admit his lack of understanding of an issue, ready to listen to every voice on a subject and then form his own opinion, an opinion that was unencumbered by fashionable frameworks. He was ever ready with his sharp, analytical lens — James Bond movies were subject to the same scrutiny as the political decisions of Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Ravish’s own life journey was inspirational. From a small town in Eastern UP, he got admission to the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, in Basti District. The school was new and had very limited infrastructure, but Ravish was clearly committed to bettering his life and stuck on. After Class 12, he moved away from home to Allahabad to take coaching classes for the IIT-JEE exam. That is when he learned to cook his signature dishes — tehri, mirchi waali daal and matar sauté — that many of us ate over the years. In 2000, he got admission to IIT Bombay for a dual B.Tech-M.Tech degree in Metallurgy. That Ravish was always ready to walk his own path was evident even in his decision not to follow the MS-MBA-Consulting route that most of his batchmates took, but to shift to public policy. From Basti district to Oxford University to becoming the National Bureau Chief of the Indian Express, Ravish was a self-made man who shaped his own destiny.

As a friend and human being, Ravish was loyal and generous to a fault. He was the friend who would show up at 3 am if you needed help. He was the older brother who always found time to mentor a young cousin who told him she was lonely while studying abroad. Even while he was battling cancer, he found the emotional bandwidth to support others. I remember when he was admitted to Max hospital a few months ago for the administration of a new chemotherapy drug, he spent much of his time counselling a young cancer patient and her family, telling them not to lose hope in the fight against the disease.

No remembrance of Ravish would be complete without acknowledging his brave and wonderful wife, Pujya. A successful professional from the publishing field, Pujya put her entire life on a back-burner and stood like a rock with Ravish while he battled cancer for the last two years. Ravish breathed his last in the early hours of February 19. While the country lost a stellar journalist, I lost one of my dearest friends.

As I write this piece, my Twitter timeline is showing stories about the last two phases of UP elections, and it breaks my heart to think that I will never hear Ravish’s sharp, grounded and irreverent analysis of Indian politics again; to realise that I will not have the counsel of my friend, my political advisor, my sharpest critic when I have a difficult political decision to make. Ravish, you will always be missed.

This column first appeared in the print edition on February 25, 2022 under the title ‘Ravish, my friend’. The writer is an MLA and leader of the Aam Aadmi Party.



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Ashish Kothari writes: There is a massive rise in allocation for infrastructure projects, with huge environmental implications, and little set aside for sustainable development

Three things stand out in the 2022-23 Union budget for anyone interested in the relationship between economy and ecology. One is the complete absence of the following words in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget speech: Nature, wildlife, environment, ecology, ecosystem, pollution, and conservation (except uses such as “business environment” and “growth ecosystem”). Second, it is a budget with a stated focus on climate action. Third, there is a massive rise in allocation for infrastructure projects, with huge environmental implications. Seen together, these highlights demonstrate the deep contradictions in the government’s approach to sustainable development.

One can analyse the budget from three standpoints: Direct allocations for the environment sector, allocations for environment in non-environment sectors, and allocations for other sectors with environmental impacts.

On the first count, there is a slight increase in the budget of the Ministry for Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) from 2021-22’s revised estimate of Rs 2,870 crore to Rs 3,030 crore. But this is easily wiped out by inflation. More importantly, this is a meagre 0.08 per cent of the total budgetary outlay. While some sectors like forestry and wildlife have seen a healthy rise in allocation, the outlay for others like the National River Conservation Plan has declined – this, astonishingly, also includes the allocation for tackling air pollution, widely acknowledged as a national emergency.

On the second count, there is mixed news. There is a welcome stated focus on natural and organic farming, and on promoting millets. But there are no details on the allocations, including for linkages necessary to make such farming viable, such as manure and markets. Also, given the major push for food processing in the budget, without making reservations for community-run businesses, there is a danger of big corporations capturing the organic space. Completely missing is a focus on rainfed farming that involves 60 per cent of the farming population and is ecologically more sustainable than artificially irrigated agriculture. The FM announced the government’s support to “chemical-free farming throughout the country,” but she has also allocated a massive chemical fertiliser subsidy of Rs 1,05,222 crore. A chance to begin shifting this subsidy to organics has been missed.

On the climate front, there are several positive provisions — use of biomass for power stations, boost to batteries, energy-efficiency measures in large commercial buildings, and sovereign green bonds. However, these gains will be more than wiped out by the much greater budgetary support to climate-unfriendly investments like those on mega-infrastructure, air travel, and coal expansion.

Renewable and “clean” energy has received substantially higher allocations. But the focus remains on mega-parks in solar/wind energy, nuclear power, and large hydro that have serious ecological impacts. These projects also threaten to grab peoples’ lands. The additional budget for farm-level solar pumps and rooftop solar generation is welcome, but it’s minuscule compared to mega-projects. Another chance to shift towards decentralised renewable energy with less ecological impacts and greater community access has been missed.

There is a striking schizophrenia in the government acknowledging climate as the “strongest negative externality” but investing hardly anything in coping mechanisms for hundreds of millions of people facing the consequences of increased floods, fires, droughts, coastal erosion, cloudbursts, unpredictable rainfall, and temperature extremes. The National Climate Action Plan gets an abysmally inadequate Rs 30 crore — the same as in 2021-22. And there is no focus on a “just transition” that could help workers in fossil fuel sectors, like coal, to transition to jobs in cleaner, greener sectors.

It is encouraging to see the budget proposing a “paradigm shift” towards sustainable urban living. A committee is to be set up to advise on this. The budget does promise greater support for public transport, something demanded by citizens’ groups for decades. Unfortunately, most of the allocation in this will go to metros that are extremely carbon-intensive in terms of construction. The budget misses out on the shift towards a full bus system, cycling and walking – which would help both the environment and most road users in cities. Even the boost to electric vehicles is likely to benefit the rich unless it is predominantly focused on buses.

The third dimension is of greatest concern. As highlighted by the FM, this is predominantly an “infrastructure budget”. While investments in infrastructure for small towns and villages are urgently needed, much of what is proposed are mega-projects. The proposed 25,000 km increase in highways will further fragment forests, wetlands, mountains, grasslands, agricultural lands and bypass most villages. A shift in paradigm to decentralised, sustainable, and community-oriented infrastructure is missing.

Several specific allocations are of further concern. For instance, the Ken-Betwa river-linking project, given over Rs 40,000 crore, will submerge valuable tiger habitat. Viable decentralised irrigation alternatives have been ignored. The Deep Ocean Mission and the Blue Revolution allocations are oriented towards commercial exploitation rather than conservation and sustainable use. A new budgetary item is oil palm, given nearly Rs 500 crore (under the SC, ST and gender budgets). A recent announcement that palm plantations are proposed in Northeast India and the Andaman Islands, both ecologically fragile, makes this a worrying prospect.

Finally, the budget misses out on a major shift to “green jobs”. This includes support to decentralised (including handmade) production of textiles, footwear, and other products. Even the MGNREGS, which could have been used for regenerating two-thirds of India’s landmass that is ecologically degraded, has got reduced allocation.

The economy will continue being overwhelmingly unsustainable and inequitable, as the private corporate sector has been favoured, and environmental regulations are being steadily whittled down. Another chance to turn the economy towards real sustainability and equity — a real “Amrit Kaal” as India heads to a centenary of Independence — has been missed.

This column first appeared in the print edition on February 25, 2022 under the title ‘Insufficiently green’. The writer is with Kalpavriksh, Pune. Views expressed are personal.



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Milind Sohoni writes: India’s educational institutions are disconnected from real world problems.

A recent report estimates that about 8 lakh students travel abroad for higher education every year and spend $28 billion or 1 per cent of our GDP on this. Of this, about $6 billion are fees that go to foreign universities. This is about Rs 45,000 crore, which is adequate capital to start and run 10 new IITs, IISERs or JNUs or any such elite institution every year. And yet, by the recent CAG report, the eight new IITs started in the period 2008-2009 are not doing well at all. The clutch of new private universities too has not managed to dent the above exodus of students and wealth. Thus, even after 70 years of Independence, and the last eight years of vigorous policy initiatives, we neither have aatmanirbharta nor a value proposition in higher education. Why is that?

Firstly, it’s about jobs. From the income tax department data of the last few years, we see that there are about 3 crore taxpayers. Taking two-thirds of these as the number of salaried people and assuming an average tax-paying life of 20 years, we see that there are only about 10 lakh fresh jobs available each year. This includes both public and private sector jobs. More data from the income tax department show that of these, there are about 3 lakh “good” jobs which pay Rs 5 lakh per annum (LPA) or more, and 30,000 “posh” jobs which pay a starting salary of Rs 10 lakh-plus per annum. Of the 3 lakh good jobs, about 1 lakh come from the IT majors. The posh jobs come from multinational companies and are in marketing, finance, IT and global engineering services. Hardly any Indian company serving the Indian customer offers a starting salary of Rs 10 lakh per annum.

From the MHRD data, we see that India graduated about 30 lakh students last year from about 45,000 colleges. Given the recent employment data, there may be about 1 crore unemployed graduates seeking jobs. This is 10 times the number of salaried jobs, 30 times the good jobs and 300 times the number of posh jobs available every year. Now, it is impossible for companies or state agencies to meaningfully interview such a large number of applicants for every job. The short-listing task for private companies is done by branded institutions and colleges. Good jobs are concentrated in about 800 top colleges and posh jobs in 80-100 elite colleges such as the IITs and IIMs, St Stephen’s in Delhi, Presidency College in Kolkata and emerging elite private universities. It is only here that good companies will go and recruit, and where a student has a hope that her CV will be read. And hence the madness of competitive exams, closing ranks and coaching classes in high school and placement and packages in college. If there was an option, no wise parent would want to put her child through this ordeal. And that
partly explains the flight of students and capital to foreign shores.

Sadly, the central and state governments also rely on such exams for their recruitment, for example, even the IAS. Can capabilities in science, economics or administrative ability be tested through exams with odds of 1-in-100? The answer is a firm no. The JEE is perhaps the single biggest disaster in India’s higher education, and yet there is no formal analysis of this exam in the public domain. Students should ask our PM for his opinion on this in his pariksha pe charcha.

But it’s also about knowledge. Why are there so few jobs? The answer to that, our economists tell us, are outdated labour laws, inadequate investments and bureaucratic cholesterol. That may be, but here too, there is a deeper connection with higher education and it begins with the job description. This is the work that a person on a job must do through the week or month. Consider, for example, a bus driver in MSRTC, the Maharashtra state regional bus service. Her weekly schedule, number of hours of service, the route etc., along with other job descriptions within MSRTC must be carefully designed. Together, they decide the efficiency, profitability and societal value provided by MSRTC. The performance of the enterprise needs to be periodically measured and analysed and the job descriptions updated. Such studies should be commissioned by the concerned IAS officer and done by the regional universities and consultancy firms.

Unfortunately for MSRTC, and for most state agencies such as irrigation, water supply or city administrations, this has not happened and they are now in a deadly spiral of decreasing efficiency and mounting losses. MSRTC itself faces a crippling strike and 93,000 jobs are at risk.
In fact, most job descriptions in the public sector have remained stagnant since independence. Thus, there is no statistician in the district public health department nor an economist in the agriculture department. If these had been there, we would have a much better understanding of the epidemic and its impact on our society.

But the role of our elite institutions is all the more crucial in emerging areas. Take, for example, air pollution. An ICMR study estimates that air pollution caused about 1.7 million deaths and Rs 2.6 lakh crore worth of lost output. Ideally, if the professional know-how and business models had been there, this could have been a Rs 26,000 crore industry of measuring, mitigating, and managing air pollution and employing 26,000 people in posh jobs. And yet, that has not happened. There is a National Clean Air Programme that has offered Rs 300 crore to over 100 city administrations across India to initiate a basic study of the problem in their cities. That is languishing because of bureaucratic sloth, incompetence but principally because there is no clear idea on what is to be done.

Thus, there was and is a clear role for the elite central institutions, the IITs, the IISERs, JNU and others. They should look at the problems of the day, formalise them, and convert them into business models and job definitions which offer solutions that deliver value. They should then have supported local institutions and entrepreneurs in the deployment of these solutions. They have missed doing that. Instead, they have chosen to become accessories to the globalisation of knowledge and a highly unequal system of delivering the benefits of science to the people. As a result, they have very little primary experience in solving the hard problems that the world faces today. In short, our professors have very little to teach.

So, it is no surprise that so many of our students choose to go abroad to study and eventually work there. Are achhe din here for these professionals to return? To find meaningful work in solving the problems that we face? To come back home and raise a family? The answer lies in our Air Quality Index, an environmental marker of the social reality we have collectively accepted.



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Meena T Pillai writes: The moral dilemmas of embracing imperfection, or the plain messiness of being ordinary, helped transform the characters she played into women of all seasons.

One of Malayalam cinema’s most beloved female character actors has made a quiet exit from life. She leaves a yawning gap that remains unbridgeable for the sheer variety, depth and shades of life she portrayed. KPAC Lalitha wrote herself onto the silver screen at a time when Malayalam cinema was blooming and maturing in the 1970s. Her life straddled its most vibrant phase for over half a century.

Born Maheswari Amma, Lalitha grew up in Kayamkulam, a small hamlet in central Kerala. She joined the left-leaning theatre collective, KPAC (Kerala People’s Arts Club), at an early age and adopted its acronym as her stage name.

Lalitha stood out for the elan with which she played the agonies and ecstasies of being a common woman. The moral dilemmas of embracing imperfection, or the plain messiness of being ordinary, helped transform the characters she played into women of all seasons.

Behind each of her finely-crafted characters, no matter how brief their screen time or how trivial their import, was a fully-formed life force radiating vitality and vigour that crackled with electricity, holding audiences spellbound by the ease with which an actor could master perfection in such small brushstrokes. In the cult classic, Manichitrathazhu, remade in multiple languages including Hindi (Bhool Bhulaiyaa), Lalitha has a small memorable scene where she narrates the spellbinding backstory of the spectral danseuse’s love life in her former birth. It is captivating to watch her face and eyes brim with the mirth of the present, while her voice conjures a ghostly presence from the past.

In Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s adaptation of Vaikom Muhammad Basheer’s Mathilukal, she “acts” with just her voice, making audiences laugh and cry, nudging them to be more human, touching their hearts with the transformative potential of a love that transgresses walls and transforms prisons into veritable gardens, where roses bloom and the fragrance of humanity fills one with strange epiphanies. All this, with just the crystal stream of a voice of undying clarity, tinged with muted passions and suffused with deep melancholic notations.

KPAC Lalitha went beyond the art and popular/commercial cinema dichotomy, placing herself in the blurred lines between categories and characters. Her nuanced performances in Adoor’s Kodiyettam, Padmarajan’s Peruvazhiyamabalam, or her spouse Bharathan’s Aaravam, among many others, indelibly etched her name into the Malayalam New Wave. And yet, the same fervour of art and rigour of method informs her forays into the more popular terrains of cinematic enterprise. She made Malayalis walk many cinematic roads, leading them up melodramatic streets in movies such as Venkalam, Amaram, Kattukuthira, Sadayam, through sad alleys in Kaattathe Kilikkoodu or Sphadikam, across by-roads of hilarity in umpteen movies such as Gandhinagar Second Street, Sandesham or through satire in Panchavadi Palam, challenging them to savour the wide spectrum of her acting prowess that went far beyond received feminine stereotypes.

That she acted in a small regional film industry, away from the “hype” around the glitz and glamour of Bollywood and its self-assigned aura of nationalist myth-making, was her only shortcoming as an actor. She lived and died a quintessential Malayali actor, for whom fame and acclaim were measured by yardsticks that often did not meet national standards. Though she bagged the National Award for Best Supporting Actress twice, and the Kerala State Film Awards four times, alongside Filmfare Awards and many other accolades, the 550-odd films she acted in clamour for applause that ought to go beyond the narrow confines of the regional. Nevertheless, she lives on in the hearts of generations of Malayalis around the world, many who grew up mouthing her “comic” dialogues, or adoring her “heroic”/ “villainous” mothers, garrulous sisters-in-law, “nosy” women-next-door characters, all of whom could turn the tables on celluloid stereotypes, whose foibles were etched unerringly on a physiognomy that was often a palimpsest of the finest undertones of human emotions, carrying the ordinary to extraordinary heights of finesse and perfection.

This column first appeared in the print edition on February 25, 2022 under the title ‘Kerala’s common woman’. The writer is a film historian and a professor at the University of Kerala.



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Brijesh Singh writes: Whatever is read or heard about the crisis in Ukraine from any side has to be taken with a pinch of salt, vetted with common sense and ascertained to be true, before it is passed on.

The crisis in Ukraine has caught the world’s attention. Visible is the conventional conflict between soldiers and words between leaders. But invisible is the information war that led up to the conventional war. NATO calls it hybrid warfare, but actually, it is a combination of cyberattacks, information campaigns and kinetic force. The sophisticated hybrid warfare and disinformation campaigns are being played by both Russia and the West. The aim is to create a multiplicity of narratives, which fragment the understanding of the opponent. Alongside the physical battles, the mind battles are on.

While a cyberattack is used to create panic and degrade the adversary’s capability to fight, information operations break the resolve to respond and push a narrative conducive to the attacking forces, even legitimising the aggression. Kinetic operations are thus suitably aided by softening the battlefield. This is what NATO accuses Russia of doing over Ukraine.

The credit for coining the term “hybrid warfare” goes to US Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Frank G Hoffman, who in 2007 defined it thus: “Hybrid wars incorporate a range of different modes of warfare, including conventional capabilities, irregular tactics and formations, terrorist acts including indiscriminate violence and coercion, and criminal disorder”.

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Russian hybrid war strategies in the 2014 invasion of Crimea were very well thought out. An important element in the success of the Russian approach was the prior establishment of a dominant position for the official Kremlin media in the local population as the primary source of news. Similar agenda-setting is already underway in many Baltic states.

From the earlier experience of Georgia, Crimea and Estonia, it has been noticed that Russian aggression coincided with the dissemination of pro-Russian and anti-Estonian, anti-Georgian or anti-Ukrainian propaganda, with an active intent of public opinion manipulation elsewhere in the world too.

Russia’s rivals in the West practise this whole-heartedly as well. The American or Western approach to these influence operations has centred on perception management, by creating impressions in the mass media and other platforms and steering discussions in the desired direction. These “psy-ops” and “strategic communications” are carefully crafted by state leaders to attain predefined objectives.

The Communist bloc has long accused the West of engineering revolutions and organising regime change across the world. In fact, it was the threat of an imminent “colour revolution” overturning a pro-Russian government in Ukraine, that may have precipitated a military response by Russia, resulting in the annexation of Crimea in 2014. “Colour” and “flower” revolutions across the world, as also the Arab springs, are widely believed to have been aided and abetted by western powers using mass and social media.

In a Kremlin-produced film chronicling the annexation of Crimea, Russian President Putin declares the mission of Russian forces to be, “to save the life of the ousted Ukrainian President Yanukovych, to protect the rights of minorities and Russian-speakers, and to liberate Crimea and bring it back to the homeland.”

Vladimir Lefebvre, the original theorist of “reflexive control” theory, posits that an adversary uses information about the other side when making decisions. It then aims to disrupt and control the decision-making algorithm of the opponent. In practice, this is achieved by feeding selective information or providing disinformation to influence the voluntary decisions of the adversary. This tactic is skillfully used to shape public discourse, set an agenda and manipulate the understanding of events.

Some of the very successful techniques used are as follows: Show of force to precipitate a crisis; providing false information; use of surprise to force decisions; interfering with an adversary’s decision-making process

These approaches involve the use of “maskirovka” — camouflage, denial, and deception — and may even include systematic modelling by intelligence agencies and policy establishment of an adversary’s thought processes, publication of deliberately-distorted doctrines, and feeding distorted information to an enemy’s key figures.

A surprising aspect of these information operations is that the mode and manner of messaging are considered irrelevant, and a large number of different channels — from radio to mobile, word-of-mouth to government reports — are used till it reaches just a small section of the mainstream media on the other side, which then picks it up and starts discussing it in public.

The aim is the creation of a multiplicity of narratives, which fragment the understanding of the other side. Leakage of confidential information, telling of tactical truths and creation of several alternative versions, creates a situation where the official channels are no longer trusted. This technique also feeds on the trust deficit between the other government and its citizenry.

Such information operations use the techniques of elaboration, persuasion, manipulation, reiteration (repeating it again and again), wedging (causing dissensions) and seeding (agenda-setting).

Russia, with its Communist past, has substantial expertise in propaganda. It is effectively used to generate, spread and amplify narratives in various languages across several geographies and demographics. When the Malaysian Airlines Flight MH 17 went missing in July 2014, the pro-Kremlin propaganda networks seized the opportunity to generate a huge volume of disinformation about the complicity of Ukraine in its disappearance. Russian mass media, official and unofficial Twitter accounts, bots and sock puppets created and shared a flurry of doctored images, videos and even fake first-person accounts to defame Ukraine.

Ukraine’s security service, SBU, recently took down two bot farms operating under the Russians, in the Ukrainian city of Lviv. These farms controlled more than 18,000 bots, engaged in spreading rumours of bombings and placement of “mines” etc. thereby engaging in disruptive influence operations.

The mind battles are on. So beware, whatever is read or heard about the crisis in Ukraine from any side, has to be taken with a pinch of salt, vetted with common sense and ascertained to be true, before it is passed on.

This column first appeared in the print edition on February 25, 2022 under the title ‘The casualty in Ukraine’. Singh is adjunct distinguished fellow for cyber security at Gateway House. He is an author and a senior IPS officer. Views are personal.



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Yesterday, oil prices spiked past $100 for the first time since 2014 and the Sensex saw its fourth biggest single-day slide in history. These are only two of the early, clear and plentiful indicators of the economic spiral set off by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. For an Indian economy climbing to recovery as the pandemic’s third wave fades out here, this crisis will mean painful choices.

India accounts for less than 1% share of Russia’s crude oil exports. But Russia is the world’s second-largest oil producer even as India imports over 80% of its oil, albeit mostly from other countries. So if global oil prices remain elevated and even more so if global oil supply is disrupted if the crisis persists, this will challenge everything from government’s Budget calculations to RBI’s capacity to stabilize inflation.

Given the weak economy and demand, the central bank will need to tackle the inflation challenge in heterodox rather than textbook ways. As for the government, even before yesterday’s invasion, FM Nirmala Sitharaman acknowledged that rising crude oil prices amid escalating Ukraine-Russia tensions pose a threat to India’s financial stability. Global headwinds will only worsen if and when stronger sanctions are put in place against Russia. Government will have to be on its toes to respond to a fast-changing quagmire.

Ukraine crisis live: India to evacuate nationals via land route after airspace closure



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Never mind Moscow’s wordplay, Vladimir Putin has invaded Ukraine. While energy-rich Russia won’t mind oil and gas prices shooting up, in part because it has customers other than the West, for example, China, and Putin would have factored in the impact of more sanctions before the first missiles hit, the world, and India, enters at best a fraught position both diplomatically and economically. Diplomatically, Putin has proved that noble words on global rules and sanctions won’t stop a major leader determined to attack. What this means for actions taken by other aggressive powers down the line, China again being a prime example, is a huge source of anxiety. Putin also seems to be looking at a regime change in Kyiv. If that happens, and if, as is likely, the US supports Ukrainian resistance groups, Europe will see a conflict that can drag out for months, or more – with all kinds of possible consequences. There’s also no escaping the fact that Ukraine again shows the limitations of the world’s most powerful country, the US, whose reputation had already taken a hit following its chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. In short, a bleak new phase of uncertainty has begun.

For India, there are several implications. While it is good that the PM told Putin that violence must cease, should the US and key security partners like France want India to say more on Russia’s conduct, it has some really tough and deft diplomatic work to do. That China itself is being very cagey on Putin’s action – not quite endorsing it – is of small comfort. India’s relationship with the US-led West is more important than ever before, both diplomatically and trade and investment wise, and whether maintaining that will require a recalibration of its current diplomatic stance is a key question. There’s also Pakistan. Imran Khan’s Moscow visit is part of his desperate attempt to make Pakistan a player in a China-led axis. But Khan’s enthusiasm about Putin can be a wrinkle in the India-Russia relationship in times like these. And, of course, tough US sanctions on Russia may impact India’s defence supply line with that country as well as future acquisitions like the S-400 missile system.

America and Europe, as well as India and much of the rest of the world, will suffer high oil and gas prices indefinitely. While global oil prices have crossed $100, the Indian basket has hit $95, and may cross three figures. Current account deficit will widen, inflation will spike, rupee will weaken and global capital’s flight to safety may hit already-bruised India’s stock markets even more. GoI must cut fuel taxes to begin with, and along with RBI, prepare for stormy days.



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Rajasthan government’s budget proposal on guaranteed pensions turned the clock back on two decades of pension reform. It’s a bad idea that threatens to spread as a similar promise is one among the many made during the campaign for UP’s assembly elections. The backstory to pension reform is that GoI’s budget for 2001-02 highlighted the unsustainable nature of guaranteed pensions. Following groundwork by experts, the National Pension System (NPS) was introduced by GoI on January 1, 2004 for its employees, with states being given the option of following suit. Rajasthan did so immediately.

There are two fundamental differences between the old pension scheme (OPS) and NPS. The former is linked to the last pay drawn by the employee and is guaranteed by the government, making it a defined benefit system. In NPS, there are no guarantees. A defined contribution of an employee is invested in regulated financial instruments and the pension is tied to market performance. A shift to NPS eased the pressure on both GoI and states. Moreover, it created space for spending on other welfare measures. Therefore, Rajasthan’s decision to go back to OPS carries the risk of crowding out other welfare and investment spending to favour government employees.

India’s military pensions continue to follow OPS. The reallocations within the defence budget provide an insight into the impact of guaranteed pensions. The 15th Finance Commission’s report showed that defence pension relative to defence expenditure increased from 17.6% in FY-12 to 25.2% in FY-19. During the same period, defence capital outlay declined from 31.8% to 23.6% of defence expenditure. Rajasthan’s chief minister Ashok Gehlot should roll back this announcement in wider public interests. In an uncertain world, guaranteed payouts will end up reallocating public resources from the needy to a relatively better off section of society.



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The current geopolitical context makes India's active efforts to shore up Sri Lanka, and to strengthen the regional economy, even more critical.

Sri Lanka is facing an economic crisis. Its foreign exchange reserves are running so low that among their problems, the country is unable to procure requisite fuel. India has extended a $500 million line of credit. But Lankan woes are likely to deepen as crude prices shot past the $100 mark this week. For India, this is the time to demonstrate that its policy of 'Neighbourhood First' holds heft. As it deals with the ramifications of Russia's actions, India will have to take measures to ensure that economic challenges do not result in instability in the region. India has provided Sri Lanka an additional $900 million relief that is part of New Delhi's $2.4 billion assistance to its southern neighbour. More needs to be done, and GoI recognises this as it reportedly considers investments to shore up the economy and expand employment in Sri Lanka. Its own economic challenges notwithstanding, India is the region's major economy. It must at least punch its weight in post-pandemic economy rebuilding in the Indo-Pacific.

Leveraging its position to promote greater economic partnership and cooperation among the Bimstec (The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) countries is an important element of this recovery. The engagement with Sri Lanka must be rooted in strengthening regional partnerships - an arrangement that builds on each country having a stake in the region's economic and developmental progress, respecting the sovereignty of nations, and promoting open societies.

The current geopolitical context makes India's active efforts to shore up Sri Lanka, and to strengthen the regional economy, even more critical. India must be proactive, progressive and imaginative in its engagement.
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The information technology industry added almost half-a-million workers in the year to March 2022, as revenues grew at their quickest pace since the global financial meltdown.

Office workers could - fingers crossed for the salaried class - be in for their best increments this year since the pandemic struck. One in three companies is planning pay hikes in the double digits as the average rate converges to 9%, according to the hiring and manpower industry. Pay hikes in industries that have pulled out of the Covid-19 pandemic trough are ratcheting up as companies grapple with the biggest mass resignation in over a decade. The skill supply disruption has pushed salary increases in India way past those in other emerging markets, and employers are offering greater flexibility in working conditions - hybrid or work from home included - in an effort to retain staff. Companies have upped their talent-retention initiatives and the pressure on payrolls has spread to sectors that saw demand collapsing in the first wave of lockdowns.

Salaries appear poised for a breakout in hi-tech clusters. The information technology industry added almost half-a-million workers in the year to March 2022, as revenues grew at their quickest pace since the global financial meltdown. The Indian technology industry is earning a quarter of its revenue at home, and niche skills are driving the digitisation of the broader economy. A survey of employers by HR consultancy Aon finds ecommerce, infotech and professional services at the top of the salary sweepstakes with hikes above 10%. Manufacturing, metals and mining are expected to see relatively lower increments. But these, too, should be upwards of 7%. Talent is most scarce in data analytics, engineering, and sales and marketing, reveals a study by Mercer.

These findings predate the breakout of hostilities between Russia and Ukraine, and should be read in the context of surging energy prices. Yet, the longer trend that has equipped a third of the country's 5 million infotech workers with digital skills is fairly entrenched. The salary hike projections signify India Inc's efforts to build a more resilient workforce. The pandemic has brought to the fore the reskilling premium.
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India finds itself in a difficult position because of actions taken by its special and privileged strategic partner, Russia, in Ukraine, which have sparked concerns about a conflict engulfing Europe and tearing down the security architecture established over decades. The tumult caused by Russia’s attack roiled global markets and caused a surge in oil prices, unwelcome developments when economic recovery is the focus of Indian policymakers, and the lingering uncertainty is unlikely to dissipate any time soon. Both Russia and Western allies are now looking to India to pick a side — an important United Nations Security Council vote is scheduled for Saturday morning India time — in a fight involving principles that are central to New Delhi’s efforts to strengthen a rules-based international order based on respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity. And, India has been left scrambling to ensure the safety and evacuation of some 16,000 nationals, most of them students, from Ukraine in extremely fraught circumstances.

During a phone conversation with President Vladimir Putin hours after the leader ordered what has been described as a “special military operation” in Ukraine, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for an immediate end to violence and a return to diplomatic negotiations by all sides. Mr Modi said the differences between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) can only be settled through sincere dialogue. However, the official Russian statement on the conversation made no mention of Mr Modi’s appeal. Mr Putin’s recent talk of the “demilitarisation and denazification” of Ukraine has given rise to fears of a prolonged occupation, and reports of civilian casualties will add to misgivings about the use of military force.

India will have to resort to deft manoeuvring to cope with the immediate fallout of what is nothing less than a military invasion and a violation of international law, and the more complicated aftermath that is still taking shape. It will have to grapple with concerns about China being emboldened by the developments in Ukraine to indulge in other misadventures while the focus of the Western powers is on Europe. It will also have to do some plain talking with Russia, a crucial supplier of defence hardware and technology, and convey the message that India does not want to be forced to take sides. This will be no easy task as India’s two main adversaries — China and Pakistan — have shown they have no qualms about cosying up with Russia and endorsing its actions in Ukraine.



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Defence budgeting is a tricky exercise since the services and strategic experts are seldom satisfied. This is partly because of the gap between projected figures and final allocations. Many strategic experts also lament the fact that the defence budget — both as the proportion of central government expenditure and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — is coming down every year.

While such perceptions miss the contextual background, the optimisation potential of the available resources never gets assimilated in academic debates over the defence budget. Revenue expenditure, for example, is one area where ample space for streamlining can be exploited to save and fund defence modernisation.

The revenue capital ratio in India’s defence Budget has traditionally veered around 60:40 proportion with minor deviations on a year-to-year basis. This year was no different. A high proportion of revenue expenditure militates against the very philosophy of efficient defence expenditure management that should graduate towards capital expenditure. This is the trend in some advanced militaries where the revenue capital ratio is rather inverse, ie, 40:60.

Higher revenue expenditure also means that the armed forces will be spending more on day-to-day maintenance-related expenditure with very little left in their kitty to fund capital expenditure. Ephemeral support like this year’s higher allocation for capital expenditure or even institutionalised support like the non-lapsable Modernisation Fund for Defence and Internal Security (MFDIS) do not provide sustainable solutions for long-term efficient budget management and will perpetuate the current revenue expenditure trends.

The various demands for grants for the ministry of defence (MoD) for 2022-23 provide us with a window to assess areas of revenue expenditure rationalisation. For example, the Army has not been able to able to control its revenue expenditure primarily because of its large manpower size. Since the Army accounts for 169,213 crore of the total revenue budget of 245,353 crore, the large manpower needs further trimming beyond some commendable pruning initiatives in recent times.

The Army will benefit from such an exercise since its revenue capital ratio is quite asymmetrical at 82:18. Similarly, the pay and allowances of defence civilians are in the ratio of 1:3 vis-à-vis the uniformed people in the Navy. This needs study and perhaps a consequential pruning since we cannot allow a disproportionate share of defence civilians vis-à-vis uniformed people or for that matter non-combat troops vis-à-vis combat forces. Liberal proportions in both the categories militate against the contemporary emphasis on stringent teeth-to-tail ratio apart from adding to the avoidable revenue expenditure.

Manpower is not the only issue that eats up resources. In defence forces, we are rather obsessed with pomp and show, ceremonials and regular social gatherings in officers’ mess. I attended a top-level course on national security last year. Despite the pandemic environment, there were more than half a dozen social gatherings, each replete with avoidable wastage of taxpayers’ money.

We don’t know if such expenditures occur because of our ignorance, because we are victims of organisational thinking, because of our lack of exposure to developmental deficits in the country, or simply because of our feudal approach as "military bureaucrats" to see frivolous expenditure. Whatever it be, it portrays us in poor light for not being sensitive towards generic resource scarcity in the country.

While burgeoning revenue expenditure has always been a public policy concern, we did miss some macro opportunities in past. For example, we did not go the whole hog about the recommendations made by Vinod Misra-led Defence Expenditure Review Committee (2008-09).

Similarly, defence expenditure was kept out of the Terms of References (ToR) of the Expenditure Management Commission (2014-17) headed by Bimal Jalan. We are yet to assimilate the defence sector into the outcome Budget scope without compromising the cannons of national security. Outcome budget, if proliferated in a calibrated manner to the defence sector, has immense potential to reduce time and cost escalation in a large number of revenue contracts apart from yielding "value for money".

Unlike the capital segment where the contracts are high value in nature but few in numbers, the realm of revenue expenditure is dotted with many areas that can be explored for future expenditure management exercises. The barrage of audit reports available on the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) website up to 2017 gives us a glimpse into the diverse range of revenue expenditure mapping that can be considered for cost management. Why don’t we focus on these issues?

Unfortunately, the limited defence expenditure debates in India are obsessed with the narrow focus on spending levels. We are still unconcerned with the excess or "unproductive" expenditure and how they affect the vital resources requirements for the sector.

At the same time, we do not have a business model capable of ensuring universal efficiency in revenue expenditure management. One of the derivative lessons from defence expenditure reforms in the West is that big-bang approaches often fail in ushering requisite cost-consciousness across the spectrum. Additionally, India is a large country with a large military, huge defence apparatus, and a compartmentalised approach of the three services in their revenue management strategy.

We need to learn from the West and make small starts by overcoming our hesitation in making every penny count. Many non-combat jobs can be easily outsourced along with a reduction in combat numbers. The proliferation of information technology and artificial intelligence can take away several man-oriented jobs or at least rationalise them.

Finally, public policy endeavours on containing revenue expenditure in the defence sector can become a success story only when the initiative comes from the constituency itself — ie the services — since outsiders may not have enough knowledge about the internal expenditure dynamics of the armed forces.

It is time for the services to take a call on rationalising revenue expenditure beyond symbolism and facilitate the optimisation of the defence Budget.

Bhartendu Kumar Singh is in the Indian Defence Accounts Service

The views expressed are personal



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As the Russian invasion unfolds in Ukraine with dramatic alacrity, most Indians seem to be united in their condemnation of, no, not Russia, but the West. In one of the most brazen violations of a weak State’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in recent memory, a big section of the Indian intelligentsia is tying itself up in knots in trying to defend the indefensible. Knowing full well who the aggressor is in this case, we continue to target the West, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and, worse still, even blame the victim. It is Ukraine, some strategic experts tell us, that is at fault in trying to be a sovereign State, in overreaching its right in deciding for itself where its interests lie. If only Ukraine could have compromised, nothing would have happened. It is Ukraine that should have realised its place in the regional hierarchy and played along with Russia, instead of dreaming of becoming an independent State.

And then, of course, there is the West with all its talk of democracy and autonomy that continues to entice nations and is responsible for this mess in Europe, the worst crisis since World War II. Across the political spectrum, there is a unique convergence in India in refusing to condemn Russia for this bizarre show of strength. If this were the United States (US) attacking any other nation like this, sections of our political class would be out on the streets, demanding India cut off ties with the US and organisations big and small would be burning American flags. But an eerie silence pervades India even as we witness one of the most egregious violations of State sovereignty in recent times. Instead, we are trying, oh so very hard, to justify Russian actions.

The Indian government’s reaction is understandable to a certain extent. In his outreach to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Narendra Modi appealed for an immediate cessation of violence, and called for concerted efforts from all sides to return to the path of diplomatic negotiations and dialogue. New Delhi’s primary concern is the safety and security of its citizens in Ukraine and the impact of the crisis on the global economy that is just about beginning to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. Diplomatically, India has to weigh the balance between its ties with the West and those with Russia. The latter is India’s primary defence partner and at a time when Indian soldiers are eyeball to eyeball with their Chinese counterparts at several points along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), antagonising Russia is not really an option. New Delhi, therefore, has to tread a cautious path and that’s what it seems to be doing at the moment.

But it’s the non-governmental reaction in India that’s befuddling to say the least. Ukraine is being sacrificed at the altar of great power politics and yet there seems little sympathy for it. There is a lot of blame that can be apportioned to various actors – the way NATO expanded after the end of the Cold War without taking into account Russian sensitivities and its long-term consequences; the way Ukraine was mismanaged over the years and its foreign policy was bereft of any sense of direction; the manner in which the Biden administration conveyed its priorities; and the divisions within the European Union on its future course of action vis-à-vis the Russian show of strength in Ukraine. But none of this takes away from the basic reality that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has no leg to stand on.

Russia’s violation of Ukrainian sovereignty should be an issue of principles for India, which has supported the norm of sovereignty globally. New Delhi will find it difficult to talk of a “rules-based” order in the Indo-Pacific if it is unwilling to stand up for the same principles elsewhere. The fact that the West was lackadaisical in the application of this principle universally doesn’t make this issue any less germane for India. However, it can be argued, and rightly so, that morality has little place in the rough and tumble world of global power politics. And so, it is at the strategic level that India should start reassessing the impact of the Ukraine crisis on its foreign policy trajectory.

This crisis and the Western response will have a significant bearing on the strategic environment in the Indo-Pacific, a theatre that India claims is different from the European one. But China is watching carefully and planning accordingly. The China-Russia entente is blossoming into a full-fledged strategic partnership. Many in India may not like this, but it is happening and after the Ukraine invasion, Vladimir Putin’s need for Xi Jinping’s support is only going to grow manifold. Despite India’s historic ties with Russia, Moscow has been more vocal than even China in showcasing its opposition to the Indo-Pacific construct and the Quad platform. Russia has even begun to flirt with Pakistan.

India has been trying its best to keep Russia in good humour but the structural realities of the global order are ensuring that Russia and India are drifting apart. The foundations of the partnership are weakening by the day. The long-term trajectory is rather clear. Russia was important to India at a certain time in its history and there are still areas of convergence between the two. But that convergence is shrinking whereas the partnership with the West is burgeoning. Today as Russia continues to play the role of the great disruptor, India should be thinking about reconfiguring its ties with Russia. Perhaps if India were not so dependent on Russia for its defence needs, New Delhi’s response to the present crisis would have been different.

Russia has challenged the extant global order in fundamental ways and Indian foreign policy won’t remain immune from its reverberations, howsoever hard we may try to convince ourselves that everyone, except Russia, is responsible for the unfolding crisis in Ukraine.

Harsh V Pant is director, studies, and head, strategic studies programme, ORF

The views expressed are personal



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Union finance minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman was conspicuously silent in her Budget speech about India’s free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations. This was despite a renewed push to FTA talks. Till 2020, FTAs did not figure prominently on the radar of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s economic policy. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government signed 11 FTAs between 2004 and 2014. However, the NDA government signed only two, with Mauritius and recently the United Arab Emirates. India famously walked out of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement – an FTA composed of Asia-Pacific nations, including China – negotiations at the 11th hour. In the last few years, the official narrative on FTAs has been that they led to India’s de-industrialisation in some sectors.

However, from 2021, the government that was criticising FTAs started showing an interest in these treaties. India kick-started negotiations with several blocs such as the European Union, Australia, Israel, and, recently, the United Kingdom (UK). Perhaps policymakers have finally realised that by not signing FTAs, India will fail to become part of global supply chains.

However, there is a fundamental dichotomy in India’s trade policy.

On the external front, India is exhibiting alacrity for freer trade. But domestically, India is doubling down on the Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) narrative. There is ample evidence to suggest that the narrative of a self-reliant India is a tale of old wine in new bottles or a “movie” that India has seen before, as Arvind Subramanian and Josh Felman argue. At the heart of this narrative is the belief that erecting tariff walls would shield domestic industry from import competition and allow it to become competitive. This economic philosophy is enunciated in the latest Economic Survey, which says that customs duties on certain imports have been hiked to provide “reasonable tariff support to goods being manufactured in India’’. Indeed, the average tariff rate in India increased from 13% to 18% from 2014 to 2020.

According to the Economic Survey, in the last six years, about 4,000 tariff lines (approximately a third of the total tariff lines) have seen an upward revision of customs duties. Union Budget 2022-23 carries forward the trend of protectionism by phasing out more than 350 customs-related exemptions. This trend was inaugurated by the late Arun Jaitley in the 2018 Budget when he made a “calibrated departure” from the post-1991 political consensus of lowering tariffs.

The incongruity with this Trumpian logic (former United States President Donald Trump built high tariff walls on the same ground) is that it lays the blame for India’s manufacturing woes squarely at the door of international trade.

However, the reality is that manufacturing in India suffers due to several factors such as the lack of competitiveness, failure to reap economies of scale, absence of land and labour reforms, infrastructural and regulatory bottlenecks, policy uncertainty, rising cronyism where rules are altered to favour select corporates, mounting social tensions and surging business concentration, among others. The jury is still out on whether offering fiscal sops to the manufacturing sector such as the production linked incentives (called “subsidy raj” by Subramanian and Felman) would reinvigorate industrial activity and generate jobs. As columnist Andy Mukherjee argues, two years of increasing tariffs in the electronics sector has increased the cost of assembling mobile phones in India by 8%, which, in turn, negates the benefits of the subsidy on offer.

India’s scorn for imports mirrors the Right-wing narrative against trade seen in the “capitalist” United States, where trade is squarely blamed for de-industrialisation, loss of blue-collar jobs, and for enriching the external “other” i.e. “communist” China. However, the irony is that India, along with several countries of Asia, has been one of the major beneficiaries of the free trade regime in the last three decades.

For India to unexpectedly turn “vocal for local”, and make a strong anti-imports pitch a central element of its domestic economic policy, especially when several of its East Asian compatriots are embedding themselves in mega FTAs, slashing tariff and non-tariff barriers, is bewildering.

The argument that these tariff hikes are for a limited duration and will be rolled back once industry becomes competitive is easier said than done. Beneficial fiscal regimes create their own set of vested interests and entitlements. Another argument advanced is that the tariff increases are not on goods used as inputs or raw materials but on finished products. This argument is an oversimplification of the ground realities because modern-day international trade takes place through global value chains where the production process is scattered across several geographies. Thus, it is not easy to classify goods as inputs and finished products as was the practice in the past.

Against this backdrop, it will be difficult for India to convince its present and potential FTA-negotiating partners to open their markets for Indian goods without due reciprocity. Trade is not a one-way street. India needs a non-protectionist trade policy, which should include pro-market reforms, not pro-business reforms that are reminiscent of India’s “stigmatised capitalism”. This would enable international trade to be a harbinger of growth and opportunity in India.

Prabhash Ranjan is professor and vice-dean, Jindal Global Law School, OP Jindal Global University 

The views expressed are personal



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Russian President Vladimir Putin became the man the world knows now probably while serving in the trenches of the Cold War as a KGB officer. But his enablers, those who looked the other way or got out of his way as he embellished his reputation, must bear their share of the blame for what he has shown himself to be by invading Ukraine: A wannabe Russian czar.

Some European leaders have expressed regret, while accepting moral responsibility, for failing to catch and cure his malady early when he invaded Georgia in 2008. That war was over in five days, but on terms that favoured Russia. Putin was rewarded instead of being punished. Putin next invaded Ukraine in 2014 and snatched Crimea, which got him expelled from G-8 and earned him some sanctions, but very mild ones. At home, however, he was hailed as a hero. Now in 2022, eight years hence, his forces are converging on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv.

Former US President Donald Trump, one of Putin’s enablers, has been ecstatic in his praise of the Russian leader, specially his pre-invasion moves of sending Russian troops as peacekeepers into areas of Ukraine that he recognised as independent republics. “I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent,” Trump said in a TV interview. He went on to call it a “pretty savvy” move.

Trump has long nursed a childlike fascination for the Russian president, much like a certain section of American Right-wing conservatives. The most striking manifestation of it is their enduring obsession with pictures of a bare-chested Putin. The first picture, which came in 2009, showed Putin on a horse. The second was part of a series of pictures of him on vacation in the Siberian mountains in 2014. Conservative media in the US — as well as some in the middle and on the Left — and commentators were smitten. Comparisons were drawn inevitably with President Barack Obama, essentially to put him down. That got to him eventually, enough for him to take a public swipe at it.

Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, top hosts of the conservative Fox News, openly sided with Putin in the hours after he invaded Ukraine. Ingraham called Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s appeal to Putin for peace “pathetic” and allowed Trump, in an interview, to blame the invasion on US President Joe Biden. Carlson slammed Ukraine as a “client State” of the US state department.

President Putin has admirers, supporters and enablers around the world. Some are client States and entities and they don’t have a choice. The others have a choice but some among them choose to support him for their own ideological and political compulsions and they are not coy about it, like Trump. And, there are those who fully comprehend the near- and far-reaching repercussions of President Putin’s actions and are privately appalled as a result, but they choose to either look away or keep quiet in their pursuit of strategic self-interest.

yashwant.raj@hindustantimes.com 

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Medical advancements in the past few decades have brought tremendous positive changes in health outcomes. However, treatments for rare diseases have failed to advance at the same pace. It is said that more than 300 million people across the world are affected by over 7,000 rare diseases. These only include the ones which have been discovered. Further, there are thousands of people living with rare diseases without proper diagnosis, let alone treatment.  As we move towards observing Rare Disease Day on February 28, it is essential to bring the discussion about rare diseases into public discourse.

A rare disease, as the term implies, is any condition that affects a small fraction of the population. There is often a lack of a large enough market to garner support and resources for developing treatments. There is no single definition for rare diseases. The parameters for the definition vary depending on the country. As of yet, no definition has been set in India, but attempts have been taken to identify the scope of prevalence and define one that is best suited for the country. Most rare diseases are genetic. 

The lack of awareness among patients, physicians, clinical researchers and the general public continues to be one of the biggest hindrances in developing treatments and therapies for these diseases. Awareness among the general public is essential for early diagnosis and timely treatment. The inability to diagnose is also a consequence of the lack of importance given to these diseases. Most physicians don’t receive any training in rare diseases during their studies. Lack of awareness and training translates to incapacity to help out people with rare diseases.

The Indian context 

Out of 7,000 rare diseases identified across the globe, 450 have been found in the Indian population. Due to the lack of epidemiological data in the country, it has so far been difficult to arrive at an estimation of the number of persons suffering from these diseases. Like most parts of the world, the higher cost of diagnosis and treatment is another significant challenge in the rare disease sphere in India.

In 2017, under orders from the Delhi High Court, the Union government came up with a policy for the treatment of rare diseases. It was revised in 2021. The policy has three major aims — increasing the focus on indigenous research, lowering the cost of treatment of rare diseases, and catching rare diseases at early stages. It further divides rare diseases into three categories in accordance with the current treatment available for them. Financial support up to 20 lakh under the Umbrella Scheme of Rashtriya Arogya Nidhi is available to the first group. It is left to the state governments to decide if they want to fund treatment for the second group and no support is provided to the third group.

Only eight health care facilities in the whole country have been designated as “Centres of Excellence” for the prevention and treatment of these diseases. A provision of a one-time grant of 5 crores is made for these centres. This is grossly inadequate taking into account the expensive machinery used for these diseases. However, the machinery purchased for genetic studies of these diseases is turning out to be quite useful for the population at large. For instance, the next-generation sequencing machine (NGS) used in genetic sequencing is being used for coronavirus sequencing and personalised medicine. 

The policy also talks about a national hospital-based registry of rare diseases to ensure the availability of adequate data and comprehensive definitions for those interested in research and development. Even after a year of the policy roll-out, the registry has not been set up. In 2019, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) of India made genetic diseases non-excludable from insurance coverage.  This has provided some relief to patients with rare diseases.

The need for special attention

Rare diseases require more consideration because of special circumstances. Affordable diagnosis and treatments will never be available for such diseases. It is not economically viable for companies to allocate resources for disease with such a small number of patients. This will not improve unless the government intervenes and provides incentives for companies. Countries such as the United States did something similar with the Orphan Drug Act, providing companies tax breaks and relaxed clinical trial regulations to get more therapeutics for rare diseases. The case is quite opposite in India, where a drug for spinal muscular dystrophy called  Zolgensma had an added GST and import duty of 6 crore over its exorbitant 16 crore cost. Expensive drugs such as Zolgensma had the added GST and import duty removed last year. There is a need to remove the added tax burden from all the therapies directed at rare diseases. They are already out of reach of the common man and this added cost makes them more inaccessible. 

Ideally, the government should cover the entire cost for such diseases due to the unique circumstances surrounding them. However, there are certain things we can do if the government is unwilling to commit to cover the cost. Setting up the 100 crore fund,  initially promised by the government can be the first step. This will go a long way in improving patients’ access to treatment. There is a tradeoff that is made when we allocate money to a select few that can be used for the betterment of a larger population. It also has to be taken into consideration that diagnosing and treating these diseases will help in broadening our understanding of other diseases. This will also help us move towards personalised medicine. 

More focus has to be put on preventive strategies. Testing and counselling for those at high risk is also a must. Proper integration of genetic and rare disease curriculum into the medical syllabus is essential for prevention and early diagnosis. Tax breaks, institutions and companies' grants, making it financially viable to research, developing and manufacturing drugs for these diseases are essential steps. It also makes more sense to reduce requirements for clinical trials given the low numbers and high cost of development.

The country needs to take a robust and transformational approach to better treat and manage people suffering from rare diseases. The Union government has to allocate sufficient resources for successfully reducing the rare disease burden.

Mahek Nankani is an assistant programme Manager, Takshashila Institution

Harshit Kukreja is a research analyst, Takshashila Institution

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On February 26, 2019, 12 Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft took off from India and crossed the border to carry out a punitive strike on a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) facility in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region of Pakistan. Code-named Operation Bandar, the attack was carried out in retaliation to the Pulwama terrorist attack that killed 40 Central Reserve Police Force soldiers. “In an intelligence-led operation in the early hours of today, India struck the biggest training camp of JeM in Balakot. In this operation a very large number of terrorists, trainers, senior commanders and groups of jihadis who were being trained for fidayeen action were eliminated,” the ministry of external affairs stated.

The Balakot strike was the first time that India carried out a bold manoeuvre, justifying it as a non-military pre-emptive action in the face of imminent danger. Credible intelligence, India said, indicated that more fidayeen attacks were being planned. The Indian government’s intention was unequivocally conveyed to Pakistan and the world that it would no longer resort to dialogue with a nation that repeatedly failed to live up to its promises made in 2004 that Pakistan would not allow its territory for terrorism against India.

The world was in favour of India. Pakistan attempted to deny the damage, claiming that the attacks only destroyed some trees and that there was no loss of life. This plausible deniability, an oft-repeated tactic by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations, was once again in display, as it had been during the Kargil intrusion, which was initially blamed on militants and Kashmiri freedom fighters.

The jury is still out on the scale of casualties in Balakot, but enough water has flown under the bridge since then.

Pakistan is reeling under economic pressure with repeated requests for a bailout from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank; the nation continues to double its debt every five years. Inflation levels are at a record high, with a huge fiscal deficit. This precarious financial situation is bound to fuel disillusionment with the current government, which came to power with the promise of making a “Naya Pakistan”. Moreover, Pakistan’s honeymoon with the Taliban, which came to power in Afghanistan, after the exit of the United States, is getting sour by the day, with reports of repeated clashes along the Durand line. The illegal sale of arms seized from the departing American forces has given a fresh impetus to this business, which will only fuel further unrest in the region.

For China, whose much-touted “higher than the mountains and deeper than the seas” bond with Pakistan continues to prosper, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan poses its own challenges. China needs to remain vigilant to the spread of terror and militancy with the increasing clout of the TIP and the TTP coupled with the Uyghur unrest in the Xinjiang region. These pose significant risks to Beijing’s investments in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Moreover, China’s strategic alliance with Pakistan will be tested in the near future, with the perilous situation in the neighbourhood after the Taliban take-over of Afghanistan and the disillusionment within Pakistan with its deteriorating economic crisis.

Investments in relationships and policies, when done with vested and parochial interests will never pay dividends. Pakistan’s policy of fomenting terrorism through its soil, China’s alliance with Pakistan as a hedge against India, Pakistan’s support to the Taliban for securing strategic depth and the American partnership with Pakistan to exert influence over Afghanistan have all ensured that the chickens have finally come home to roost.

After the Balakot strike, there has been a discernible downward trend in infiltration from across the border and terror attacks/incidents. India’s diplomatic heft and its military capability with the induction of Rafale fighter aircraft with specialist stand-off precision weapons has only increased since then.

The last Fire Power Display (FPD), carried out by the Indian Air Force, took place two days after the Pulwama attack. This year’s FPD is being carried out on March 7.

The lull in terror attacks must not make us complacent. No. The powder must be kept dry and innovative options must be considered and debated because cold, calculative, and decisive actions, incorporating surprise and deception, will pay dividends and ensure that national security is not compromised.

Is the monkey of cross-border terrorism finally off India’s back? Only time will tell.

Anil Golani is additional director-general, Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi

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Recently, two judges of the Supreme Court recused themselves from a major case fearing invectives and trolling on social media. While there can be no debate that the decision of recusal inexorably lies with the judge hearing the matter, some concerns remain.

Recusal originally adverted to the people who refused to attend services of the Church of England. In legal parlance, it is understood as an act of abstention which restrains presiding court officials or an administrative officer from participating in legal proceedings on account of conflict of interest.

The underlying philosophy behind recusal is the Latin maxim "nemo judex in re sua" (no man shall be a judge in his own cause). The oath of office taken by a judge under Article 219 of the Constitution enjoins the judge to duly and faithfully and to the best of their knowledge and judgment, perform the duties of the office without fear or favour, affection or ill will while upholding the Constitution and the laws.

The apex court, in Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Assn (Recusal Matter) v. Union of India (Recusal Matter), upon an analysis of judicial precedents, culled out the following principles and standards relating to recusal: “If a Judge has a financial interest in the outcome of a case, he is automatically disqualified from hearing the case. In cases where the interest of the Judge in the case is other than financial, then the disqualification is not automatic but an enquiry is required whether the existence of such an interest disqualifies the Judge tested in the light of either on the principle of ‘real dangeror ‘reasonable apprehension of bias. The Pinochet case added a new category i.e that the Judge is automatically disqualified from hearing a case where the Judge is interested in a cause which is being promoted by one of the parties to the case.”

These principles were referred to and relied upon by a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court in Indore Development Authority (Recusal Matter-5 J.) v. Manohar Lal, 2020 where the court reiterated that the decision for recusal cannot be influenced by outside forces and that “Recusal is not to be forced by any litigant to choose a Bench. It is for the Judge to decide to recuse.”

The dispute in issue relating to the water sharing of the Krishna river flowing through the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana has been a hot potato for the judges who heard this matter in the past. Now, two learned judges who have recused suo motu happen to hail from the states which are in dispute. The reports suggest that the judges did not wish to be a target of invectives. Legally, the judges are empowered to take a call on their recusal and nobody can dictate this choice, but such a recusal sets a dangerous precedent.

In this new age of fingertip access to social media, the judges are habitually trolled for deciding one way or the other. Even before a matter comes up in court, aspersions are cast and motives are imputed to influence the decision making of the judges. The Supreme Court, in the case of Kamini Jaiswal v. Union of India & Anr., 2018, recommended resorting to its contempt jurisdiction to deal with and punish such persons in accordance with the law. However, in reality, judges seldom take recourse to contempt jurisdiction principally to avoid controversy.

India's judge-to-litigant ratio is dismal, and if each judge becomes disqualified from adjudicating disputes of their home state, and if every decision of a judge is scanned through the lens of their culture, religion or origin, we might never have any decisions in matters relating to a significant section of society.

The judges may be ready to overcome these conflicts and do overcome them, but the public perception of their image forbids them to do so. To recall the words of Justice Frankfurter, in Capital Transit Company & Washington Transit Radio, Inc. V. Franklin S. Pollak & Guy Martin, “There is a good deal of shallow talk that the judicial robe does not change the man within it. It does. The fact is that on the whole judges do lay aside private views in discharging their judicial functions. This is achieved through training, professional habits, self-discipline and that fortunate alchemy by which men are loyal to the obligation with which they are entrusted.”

In India, the test of “mere likelihood of bias” has given way to the allegation of bias being backed by strong cogent logic and evidence of its likelihood to ward off-forum hunting/bench preference or brow-beating of court. Moreover, judges have come forward to repulse “affronts, jibes and carefully and consciously planned snubs” aimed at them. However, lately, judges in important cases having wide ramifications have chosen to take the "convenient and soft" path of recusal.

The point of concern is that if the senior judges of the apex court step aside on apprehensions of a possible backlash on account of their verdicts, then it may start a disturbing trend of forced and unconscionable recusals and augment the mounting pendency, and what is more, may give impetus to such motivated, disgruntled and subversive forces.

Justice cannot be abandoned at the mercy of “calculated psychological offensives and mind games” adopted to seek recusal of judges. However, at times, the vilification campaigns orchestrated on social media can cause a lot of distress and dismay to the Judges and their kin and kith.

Judges are entrusted with a sacrosanct function of decision-making and are enjoined to perform their duties without fear or favour, affection or ill will, but at the same time, ought to be provided with a conducive environment for doing so. Judges must be safeguarded from this intimidation and brow-beating.

That there is a powerful lobby that wishes to influence — or even control — the judiciary is no longer a secret. And they profess to act in the name of "accountability".

Vicious campaigns launched against the judiciary after the Supreme Court upheld the conviction and sentence of Afzal Guru comes to my mind. Certain sections of the media also fell prey to this game. The same can be said, to some extent, about the judgment in the Ayodhya matter. Former Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi has made detailed reference to this in his recently released autobiography, Justice for the Judge.

But, then, this trend needs to be arrested in the interest of the judicial system and democracy. Things have gone too far. Freedom of speech cannot — and should not — be permitted to damage the freedom of the judiciary.

Abhishek Gupta is an advocate based out of New Delhi, appearing in various courts, including the Supreme Court 

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Acknowledging the long-term negative repercussions of early marriages and teenage pregnancies on women in India and their children, the government is contemplating raising the age of marriage for girls from 18 years (as prescribed under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006) to 21 years. In this respect, the Union Cabinet recently approved raising the legal age of marriage to 21, based on the recommendations of the Jaitley Committee. This decision was based on the principle of equality (i.e. same age of marriage for men and women) and to ensure that women’s “physical, mental and reproductive health” is protected. However, rather than viewing this measure as a step in the right direction, many (Opposition members and civil society) disagreed with the government’s move. Their arguments, however, defy logic and reasoning.

Critics have questioned the bill’s rationale, based on the fact that 18 years confers majority under Indian law, and accordingly, girls should have the choice to marry at 18. These critics, however, fail to acknowledge the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 (PCMA) confers the right to marry for boys at 21, and equality mandates the same privilege be granted to girls too. Unfortunately, many have failed to see the benefits of the bill thanks to deeply rooted patriarchal beliefs and customary practices.

The National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5) statistics showing that 23.3% of women (20-24 years) were married before 18 years has been cited by critics as evidence of the failure of the current law to tackle the problem. They argue that increasing the age of marriage will, in turn, lead to a further increase in numbers.

Undoubtedly, the enactment of the revised child marriage law according to parliamentary approval of the bill alone will not resolve the problem of child marriage. However, the argument that the incidence of child marriage will increase due to the proposed amendment is no reason to avoid adopting legislation aimed at giving young girls (mainly from the most disadvantaged homes) an opportunity to complete secondary education and garner requisite skills to become financially independent. Moreover, the ineffective implementation of PCMA must be used as a defence to avoid amendment to the law.

On the contrary, implementation is key to realize the bill’s vision and impact the girls who are most vulnerable to child marriages, including those in rural India and from lower wealth quartiles, and this should be the focus of policy reform. Further, grassroots advocacy campaigns are vital to generate awareness among the community and build catalysts of change within these communities. Additionally, the National Policy of Education should act as an enabler to ensure that girls are provided access to secondary and higher education and windows of opportunity for skill development to empower them to make more informed life choices rather than allow others to decide their fate.

Of all the critical arguments, the least tenable construes the amendment as a means to criminalise women’s sexuality. The connection made by critics between a law restricting marriage under 21 years and restriction on women’s sexual choices assumes all child marriages are consummated by girls on their accord as a consequence of sexual freedom. This limited understanding of child marriage and sexual freedom requires a serious rethink.

Rather than relying upon anecdotal evidence justifying or negating the impact of increasing the age of marriage, Young Lives India has analysed NFHS-4 (2015–2016) data to ascertain how growth and development outcomes of women are affected by their age at the time of marriage. The analysis reveals that 62.6% of women in the age group 20-30 got married before 21 and only 21.2% of women got married after 21.

Noticeable differences are seen on the impact of increasing marriage age, with only 28.1% of the women who married before 21 years, completing secondary education as opposed to 61.8% who married after they were 21. It is no surprise that women who married early, i.e. below 21 years, were majorly employed in agricultural (80.4%) and/or manual-skilled and unskilled work. Additionally, we observe inter-generational transmission of poverty with a higher proportion of children born to women married below 21 years being anaemic (59.7%), stunted (40.6%) , and underweight (37.8%), as compared to children born to women married after the age of 21 years i.e. 56.2% anaemic, 29.1% stunted, and 27.3% underweight.

Given this evidence, the bill is a positive step in the right direction and can become the harbinger of social change. Notwithstanding, it is equally essential that Section 3 of the PCMA be amended to make child marriage void-ab initio. We, as a society, owe our youth the opportunity the grow, be nurtured and develop to their fullest potential rather than trapping them within the confines of an early marriage on account of outdated customs, traditions and worst of all on account of chronic poverty and lack of education. Those against the bill must realise that rather than being guided by political leaning and posturing, the welfare of our youth should remain at the centre of the debate, and we must secure the rights of India’s youth to make informed choices related to marriage.

Renu Singh is executive director, Young Lives India

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Ask most people what they think of when they eat, and genetics is not likely to be the first answer. Well, there is a record of human diets in our DNA.

To enjoy food, we have to digest it. Digestion consists of mechanically breaking down food and then chemically taking it apart with enzymes inside the body so that it can be used. In the case of carbohydrates, they are broken down so they can pass through the intestinal wall and be used for energy. 

What does genetics have to do with carbohydrate digestion? Quite a bit. 

First, as our ancestors developed a taste for starch (a complex carbohydrate), the gene that gives rise to the enzyme that breaks starch down was duplicated in their genomes. A genome is a complete set of genetic material. We inherited starch-digesting genes from our starch-loving ancestors and more of these genes makes it easier for us to digest starchy food.

Second, for those of us who can digest milk into adulthood, we can thank inheriting a genetic switch that keeps lactase enzyme production on past childhood. This is a rare variation that only some people (and no other adult mammals) possess. 

And third, humans have acquired certain genes over time that help us to eat carbohydrates that our own bodies cannot digest. An assortment of genes from beneficial bacteria that colonise our intestines helps us to get energy from indigestible fibre. 

Let’s look at starch. It is incredibly important to our diets. A prevailing myth is that our Paleolithic ancestors did not eat grains or other starchy foods. In fact, starch was part of the diet of humans who lived in the Sahara when it was green, over 120,000 years ago. It turns out that the “paleo diet”, which promotes grain abstinence is a misnomer.  

Amylase is the enzyme that helps us to split starch into simpler sugars. Because we have amylase in our saliva (in addition to the amylase made by the pancreas), we can break down starchy food in our mouth into sweet sugars. Modern humans have up to 20 copies of the gene for it, while other types of humans (like Neanderthals) and apes had only a few. 

Bread, potatoes, pasta, and rice are important culturally and as a source of nutrition. Populations that have more amylase genes copies, and consequently, more amylase in their saliva are inclined to eat more starchy food. 

Even animals that are in close proximity to humans have been influenced by our diets. Many of them contain multiple copies of the amylase gene because they’ve survived on our scraps. Dogs have more copies than wolves, domesticated pigs more than boars, and street mice more than wild deer mice.

Now, consider milk. Like other infant mammals, nearly all humans can digest milk as babies. But most adults cannot. This is because most of us stop making lactase the enzyme that breaks down lactose, which is a sugar in milk. Only around one-third of adults globally can digest lactose because they can make the lactase enzyme. Those of us who can’t digest large amounts of lactose in milk are lactose intolerant. 

Modern humans have been around for approximately 200,000 years. Most of this time our ancestors were hunter-gatherers. Then 10,000 years ago, our ancestors started to grow crops, domesticate animals, and settle down. Cows were important to certain farmers and pastoralists. 

We can conceive of a scenario in which being lactose persistent was beneficial to some people roughly 9,000 years ago. Imagine that normal crops failed locally, and a community faced starvation.  Those who survived on cow’s milk were able to weather famine better. They passed on this feature to their descendants.   

Lactase persistence varies from region to region and has arisen independently in Europe and Africa. The mutation that keeps the lactase gene turned on into adulthood is different in African and European populations. As humans spread around the globe, they carried these genetic variations. 

But it simply isn’t enough to consider the human genome and our own genes when we talk of digestion. You and I also have a versatile set of many genomes in our bodies in microbes that colonise the gut. In fact, just one kind of bacteria might have over 250 enzymes that break down carbohydrates compared to less than a hundred from all of our own human cells. And there are thousands of different kinds of microbes in the gut that give us digestive firepower.

Nearly all of us eat plants. Much of plant material cannot be digested by our own cells. This includes carbohydrates such as fibre.  Scientists have found that eating fibre helps prevent obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. Most of us can digest fibre through enzymes produced by gut microbes. 

Certain microbes in the intestine ferment indigestible carbohydrates to short-chain fatty acids. These chemicals make us feel full and provide energy to our bodies. In fact, there are estimated to be more than 16,000 carbohydrate-digesting enzymes in the gut that come from microbes.

Finding food and eating was a challenge throughout most of our history. Now, the problem for many of us is that we eat too much. What is clear, however, is that we benefit from eating fruits, whole grains, legumes, and vegetables. Or summed up in author Michael Pollan’s pithy words — “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

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

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