Editorials - 19-06-2022

The spontaneous protests across the country show unemployed youngsters have nothing to lose in the fight for their pride

Written by AA Rahim

In January this year, a video of a soldier went viral. Amid the snow-covered terrains of Kashmir in the peak of winter, Indian Army personnel could be seen braving the sub-zero temperature and chilly winds. The video was shared by the handle of Indian Army PRO Udhampur with a line from Rudyard Kipling’s 1914: “No easy hope or lies/Shall bring us to our goal/But iron sacrifice Of body, will, and soul/There is but one task for all/One life for each to give/Who stands if Freedom fall?”.

It is unfortunate now that the Union government has chosen to undermine the hard work of our soldiers by introducing the Agnipath scheme that virtually amounts to instituting contractualisation in the Armed Forces. Supporters of the scheme argue that it will reduce the expenditure on pensions from the defence budget. This speaks of a neoliberal attitude: Soldiers and veterans are seen as burdens on the state. Their sacrifices and contributions will be erased after four years as the state will forget them once their tenure is over. The scheme is a setback for a large number of youngsters who have spent years preparing themselves to join the Army. The pride and honour associated with serving the Army will be undermined as post-retirement benefits are taken away. The Army cannot be treated as an entity where employees can be taken on board on a temporary basis to fulfil urgent and compelling requirements. Its remit goes much beyond the mere creation of human resources for the defence of our country. The institutional importance of national security will suffer once corporate practices of contractualisation are introduced. That is likely to have a big impact on the professionalism, spirit and military ethos within the Armed Forces. Soldiers who are on a contract and have no certainty about their future will have to carry the massive burden of having to prepare and plan for a second career after their period of service.

In response to CP(M) MP V Sivadasan’s query about the number of vacancies in the Army, Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt informed, in a written reply, that there are over 1.22 lakh vacancies, including 8,362 in officer ranks, in the three wings of the Indian military. There has been no recruitment in the last two years even as unemployment has grown. The number for recruitments this year through Agnipath would be about 45,000. It seems, therefore, that the government’s intention is not just to introduce temporary Army staff but also to downsize its strength. That is not the right thing to do given the current geopolitical condition. The new scheme has been introduced at a time when our borders are witnessing frequent confrontations. The reduced strength of the Army will put more stress on the existing staff which can further impact the efficiency of the forces. The return of the Agniveers to the ranks of the unemployed, and very likely unskilled pool, will create more stress for the Union and state governments. They will need to be adequately rehabilitated.

The Agnipath Scheme also runs contrary to the Narendra Modi government’s credo of a strong nation. It’s of a piece with the now annulled farm laws. The spontaneous protests show the unemployed youngsters of the country have nothing to lose in the fight for their pride. To borrow Rudyard Kipling’s words from the poem that the Ministry of Defence quoted in its tweet, “For all we have and are/For all our children’s fate/Stand up and take the war”.

The writer is a CPM MP, Rajya Sabha



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Partha Sen writes: As RBI raises interest rates, foreign portfolio outflows will slow down, with rupee appreciating. That's not good for external balance

The Indian economy has been hit by inflationary shocks of late. The inflation target of the Reserve Bank of India is 4 per cent, with a band of 2 per cent on either side. However, the RBI did precious little to try and lower the inflation rate given that it was at or above the upper threshold of 6 per cent since the beginning of this year. Only after inflation hit 7 per cent did it raise the repo rate. So how will this episode pan out?

The fact that some part of inflation is coming from abroad is an added complication. There has also been a steady outflow of foreign funds from the stock market. This could cause the rupee to depreciate, in turn, raising the prices of imported goods (for example petroleum products), thereby adding to the inflationary woes. The RBI has raised the cost of borrowing (by 90 basis points so far), with a promise of more to come. The central government has cut fuel taxes with alacrity, and has banned the export of certain items. Knee jerk reaction galore. But do our policymakers have enough arrows in their quiver?

Supply shocks pose a problem for the authorities. If output is stabilised using macroeconomic policies, prices will rise even more. On the other hand, if they stabilise prices, output (and employment) will fall. It is argued by mainstream economists that discretion in policy making is used by politicians for their narrow partisan ends. Inflation targeting is rules-based. Monetary authorities raise interest rates if inflation is above the preferred target, and vice versa. Actually, interest rates should rise more than inflation so the “real” interest rates rise, causing a compression in demand (and a fall in economic activity), which in turn will reduce inflation. The RBI embraced this idea. In 2016, an independent monetary policy committee was constituted. Until recently, the inflation rate was well within its target range, but with the supply side shocks (originating from food and oil primarily), all hell has broken loose. I feel that in a bid to follow international best practices, the RBI seems to have fallen for a fashionable framework hook-line and sinker, without thinking about the structure of the Indian economy. I want to highlight two points.

The first point relates to agriculture’s role in the Indian economy. India’s non-food and non-oil components of the consumer price index CPI are about 47 per cent. In comparison, for the ECB, it is less than one-third of the CPI. Of course, the RBI has no control over international prices of food and oil, so it must squeeze less than 50 per cent of the domestic economy to lower inflation. As mentioned earlier, the real interest rise works through demand compression. But the problem is on the supply side. Also, as compared to the RBI, the ECB would suffer a lower rise in inflation, and has a larger menu on which to apply demand compression.

The second point is the silence on the exchange rate and its effects on output. Until the 1970s, the accepted wisdom was that an economy had to achieve both internal balance and external balance. The former consisted of full employment and low inflation using monetary and fiscal policies. The latter objective required a balanced current account over some horizon (“don’t get too much into foreign debt”), by using, for example, the exchange rate. Over time, the internal balance has come to mean, from a policy perspective, low inflation, since “the market” will ensure full employment (put on hold during the global financial crisis and the Covid-19 outbreak). For the OECD countries, the external balance was not a constraint any longer, since they had made their currencies fully convertible, and international capital flows were unrestricted.

But is this true for India? If it were so, no one would be interested in discussing the country’s foreign exchange reserves, because these could be generated instantaneously by exchanging the domestic currency for foreign exchange. Until 2020, India had seen massive portfolio capital inflows (when OECD interest rates were low), and its current account deficits were financed by foreign reserves. But portfolio inflows can, and do, reverse themselves. In about six months, the foreign exchange reserves have fallen from around $640 billion to around $600 billion. FII inflows also contribute to India’s lack of competitiveness. The RBI bought foreign exchange (with rupees). But fearing this would stoke inflation, it sold government bonds, and removed the excess liquidity. This “sterilised intervention” saw the RBI’s foreign exchange assets going up, matched by a reduced holding of government bonds. Thus, India’s foreign exchange reserves were not its “own”— there were liabilities against it. This is unlike foreign exchange reserves accumulated by running current account surpluses (for example China). The FII rush into India created an “exchange market pressure”. The RBI could have let the rupee appreciate or have accumulated foreign reserves. It chose an intermediate solution — a mix of an appreciation and accumulation of reserves. The appreciation caused by inflows reduced international competitiveness for Indian products. In effect, we had our own episode of the “Dutch Disease”.

To go back to inflation targeting. As the RBI raises interest rates, outflows will possibly slow down with the rupee appreciating. That is not good for external balance. It is easy to see that inflation targeting could be at odds with external balance. Our commerce minister has reportedly said that India is a current account deficit country, and, therefore, a depreciation is bad, since it makes imports more expensive. Words fail me here. If inflation does prove stubborn, and fighting inflation is all that the authorities in India worry about, we could see an external crisis. Sounds far-fetched?

The writer is former Director and Professor of Economics, Delhi School of Economics



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Javed Anand writes: Mohan Bhagwat's homilies on manavta run parallel to Hindutva’s continuing onslaught on minorities

So which is the real Mohan Bhagwat? The one who, while addressing swayamsevaks at the RSS headquarters in Nagpur on June 2, advised Hindus not to go looking for a Shivling in every mosque? Or the one who in the course of the same speech squarely blamed Indian Muslims for repeatedly testing the patience of Hindus with their provocative words and deeds? Hindu society does not accept any form of extremism, he asserted, while claiming that the same cannot be said of Indian Muslims. So is the victim being named the accused?

Forget the ugly reality of today’s hate-filled, conflict-torn India where Hindutva’s zealots are forever opening new fronts to hound and hurt Indian Muslims. Welcome to the make-believe, fantasy world of the RSS chief. What is today known as Hindu religion, we are told, is the very same “world religion”, “religion for all humanity” enunciated by India’s rishi-munis in ancient times. The essence of this world religion lies in love for all, unity in diversity, respect for all forms of worship and faith, believing in and practising “manavta, sabka saath, sabka vikaas”. Haven’t we heard that before?

The world today, said Bhagwat, is in urgent need of a universal vision and the hour is near for India to step forward and guide the world, be the vishwaguru. For this to happen, people of India (religion no bar) have to come together. That should not be difficult. Though the form of worship of Indian Muslims may be “foreign”, they remain our “blood relations”, share the same ancestry and heritage, said the RSS chief. Equivocation? Hope still for Indian Muslims?

Unfortunately for Bhagwat, by their remarks against Prophet Mohammed, the BJP’s now-suspended spokesperson, Nupur Sharma, and the expelled head of the media cell of the party’s Delhi unit, Navin Kumar Jindal have ruined the whole show. The self-proclaimed vishwaguru is currently having a hard time convincing the world that it, in fact, respects all religions. Is all talk of “world religion”, the tall claim of Hindu exceptionalism and the vishwaguru proclamation nothing but jumla?

Sharma’s remarks incidentally had hit the headlines several days before Bhagwat’s Nagpur meeting. His homilies would perhaps have carried some credibility had he named Sharma and castigated her in his speech for her “un-Hindu” conduct. But then, be it Sharma or Yati Narsinghanand or the numerous others of their ilk, the RSS chief never takes names, and sticks to generalities that offend none. With governments of 15 Muslim majority countries demanding an official apology from the BJP-led government of India, the offending remarks were sought to be wished away as coming from “fringe elements”. A tacit admission that the fringe now occupies the Centre?

Perhaps the bruised and battered Muslim community should nonetheless be grateful for small mercies, be thankful to the RSS chief for asking Hindus not to go looking for a Shivling in every mosque in the country. On the current Gyanvapi mosque dispute, Bhagwat has opined that it is among the few temples which are of special significance (vishesh shraddha) to Hindus. It would be best if the two sides sat together and arrived at an amicable solution, failing which both sides must unreservedly respect the verdict of the courts. The RSS chief added that “contrary to its nature”, the organisation got involved in the Ramjanmabhoomi movement for “certain historical reasons” but it does not intend to be part of any such movement now. The question remains: Where will the RSS stand when “others” launch a movement or the Narendra Modi-government decides to repeal the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991?

In any case, the mandir-masjid dispute is not the only one that plagues current day India. In the past eight years, Hindutva’s hate factory has developed the fine art of forever manufacturing new issues to target Muslims. Far from acting to contain the menace, forget others, even the Prime Minister (a former RSS pracharak) effectively supports the hate-Muslims agenda with his dog-whistles from time to time. Only the willfully blind will fail to see that thanks to Hindutva’s unrelenting 24/7 propaganda, Muslims today are hated as never before. And to any form of Muslim resistance to the unceasing assaults against the community, be it the BJP government at the Centre or in the states, the default response now is UAPA, NSA, sedition charge and the bulldozer.

While Bhagwat is feeding us the vishwaguru fantasy, reputed international organisations including Genocide Watch are warning of an impending genocide of Indian Muslims. In December last year, at a meeting of the RSS-VHP inspired Dharam Sansad, Hindu religious leaders publicly called for violence against Indian Muslims. Till date, neither the RSS chief nor the Prime Minister has said a word in condemnation of this open incitement to mass murder. Such deafening silence on a matter of life and death makes one wonder whether the RSS chief inhabits a parallel universe or is he feeding us a lie.

In February 2018, the RSS chief made a stunning statement at a meeting of the organisation in Muzaffarpur: “Preparing an army takes six to seven months but we [RSS cadres] will be battle ready in two-three days… this is our capability and discipline that marks us apart.”

An impressive army, no doubt. Could it be his case that none from his mammoth countrywide network of the RSS-spawned sangh parivar has anything to do with unceasing attacks on the minority community, or with Hindutva’s hate factory’s ongoing an ever intensifying hate-Muslims, hate-Islam campaign? Isn’t all this happening under the watch of the BJP governments at the Centre and the states? What else is the BJP but the political wing of the RSS?

Recall the popular TV ad some years ago in which Amitabh Bachchan tries to hoodwink a little boy into parting with his soft drink bottle. The boy’s response: “Aap mujhe ulloo samajhte hain?” (Do you think I am a fool?) Similar is the feeling of Indian Muslims in response to Bhagwat’s homilies on manavta which run parallel to Hindutva’s continuing onslaught on the community.

The writer in convener, Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy and co-editor, Sabrang India online



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Coomi Kapoor writes: Some suspect that the BJP’s surprise decision to field Ghanshyam Lodhi, and not Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, as its candidate for the Rampur Lok Sabha by-election is part of a secret understanding with former Rampur MP Azam Khan.

Some suspect that the BJP’s surprise decision to field Ghanshyam Lodhi, and not Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, as its candidate for the Rampur Lok Sabha by-election is part of a secret understanding with former Rampur MP Azam Khan. Khan, the SP politician who resigned his parliamentary seat after winning the Rampur Assembly constituency from jail, was last month granted bail by the Supreme Court in 81 cases filed against him by the Yogi government. The Central government’s rejoinder to the bail application filed by Kapil Sibal was rather weak. Lodhi, a former SP MLC , is a close associate of Khan and used to describe himself as his “Hanuman”. While Khan was in jail, Akhilesh Yadav never bothered to visit him. But after his release, Akhilesh sent a blank candidate’s form and asked Khan to fill out the name of his choice to contest in his place. Akhilesh expected that Khan would nominate his wife. Instead Khan waited till the very last moment  before filling out the name of Asim Raza, Rampur city president, considered a lack-lustre candidate.

Diplomatic Divisions

NSA Ajit Doval, rather than the MEA, was successful in mollifying the feelings of Iranians upset over Nupur Sharma’s verbal missile. During the Iranian Foreign Minister’s recent visit to India, Doval reportedly assured the minister that “anyone who speaks like this will be taught a lesson’’. While the Iranians reported the former police officer’s remark approvingly, the NSA neither confirmed nor denied the conversation. The MEA did not divulge details of the meeting but contradicted reports that any threat had been made to Nupur by pointing out that Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had removed the purported remark from its official website. But the statement remains on the Iranian official news agency website.

Seething CM

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s constant contradictions of BJP policy is a deliberate strategy. Recently, he scoffed at Amit Shah’s statement that history needed to be rewritten, remarking caustically, “How can anyone change history?’’ Nitish’s message is clear: the BJP can attempt to marginalise its alliance partner at its peril. When two senior BJP ministers sought to meet Nitish, he sent word that he was busy, indicating that he would only talk at the Amit Shah level. Nitish knows the numbers favour him. Whomsoever he aligns with gets a majority in the assembly. One conjecture is that Nitish hopes to strike a deal with Tejashwi Yadav as part of which Nitish will continue as chief minister till the 2024 election, after which he will step down to make way for Lalu Prasad’s son.

A Disputed Poll

While the buzz is that is Kiran Chaudhary was the second Congress MLA, along with Kuldip Bishnoi, who allegedly sabotaged Ajay Maken’s chances of election to Rajya Sabha, she has denied it vehemently. Bansi Lal’s feisty daughter-in-law, like many Haryana Congress MLAs, was infuriated by the appointment of Hooda’s lieutenant as state party president in place of the affable and popular Kumari Selja, but that doesn’t mean she turned dissident. The cancelled ballot paper had a tick on the candidate’s name instead of the stipulated vertical line and Chaudhary, a seasoned veteran, who has voted in six previous Rajya Sabha polls, would not normally have made such an obvious glaring mistake. Chaudhary’s argument is that the ballot paper is secret so how could anyone claim to have seen it? Incidentally, the winner, media owner Kartikeya Sharma, is related by marriage to Ajay Maken and the joke making the round about the victory he stole from Maken inevitably centred around “Maken chor”. Priyanka Vadra is doubly annoyed with the Hoodas. Not only did they assure the Gandhis that Maken would win easily, but Deependra Hooda, after three-fourths of the ballots were counted, came out of the counting centre to announce triumphantly that the Congress had won, resulting in the first false news flashes.

Left high and dry

Ever since the government indirectly took charge of the management of Delhi’s Gymkhana Club, things have gone to pot. The unkindest cut of all was a letter last week from the present nominated six-member general committee declaring that all spouses of deceased members will not be entitled to use the club facilities from July 1. The numerous elderly spouses of deceased members have been using the club as their second home for years and are totally dependent on the club’s take-away food facilities. Disbarring the widows, who hold legitimate spouse cards, is in contravention of the club’s articles of association.



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P Chidambaram writes: Jobs should have been the singular focus of the Modi government. It was not; it wasted 8 years. It used its social and political capital to divide the people of India

The government has flattered me by reading my column (The Indian Express, February 20, 2022). Finally waking up to the reality of soaring unemployment, it has announced that 10 lakh persons will be recruited to posts under the central government. Save a few exceptions, every family is affected by the lack of jobs. Add to that the loss of jobs. Especially after the pandemic-hit year (2020-21) and the indifferent recovery year (2021-22), unemployment is the biggest economic challenge faced by India.

In the run-up to the LS elections 2014, Mr Narendra Modi, the BJP’s candidate for prime minister, made the lofty promise that he would create 2 crore jobs a year. There were sceptics, but their voices were drowned by the drumbeats of the bhakts (believers). The bhakts swallowed every promise including the mind-boggling promise that ‘black money stashed abroad will be brought back and Rs 15 lakh credited to the account of every Indian’. I doubt if any one did the math.

After the new government took office, all talk ceased about creating 2 crore jobs a year or crediting every Indian’s bank account with Rs 15 lakh. The people were unusually forgiving! The government got busy in refurbishing and re-naming the UPA schemes and claiming them to be its own. The MGNREGA scheme that provided ‘last resort’ jobs to the poor — that was lampooned by Mr Modi — was retained because the government could not invent an alternative scheme.

Bad to Worse

The situation on unemployment has only got worse. There are two universally-used metrics: the first is the Total Labour Force and the second is the Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR). The total labour force in India is 430 million. The LFPR is the proportion of the total labour force that is currently employed or looking for employment. That percentage was 42.13 per cent in May 2022 (source: CMIE). It is one of the worst in the world (US: 63 per cent). The CMIE concluded that “millions left the labour markets and they even stopped looking for employment, possibly too disappointed with their failure to get a job and under the belief that there were no jobs available.”

Besides, only 20 per cent have salaried jobs, 50 per cent are self-employed and the rest are daily wage labour. In June 2021, according to CMIE’s Consumer Pyramids Household Survey, the median household monthly income was Rs 15,000 and the consumption expenditure was Rs 11,000. In such a precarious labour market, when the sole employed person in a family lost his/her job — as it happened in the pandemic-hit year — that family invariably fell into distress and poverty. The poorest were the worst hit. Data show that malnutrition and hunger have increased.

In the 8 years since 2014, millions of jobs were lost, few jobs were created, the LFPR declined and unemployment increased. We cried hoarse, but the government did not pay heed. It took refuge in dubious statistics. At one point, even ‘selling pakoras’ was touted as a job!

Hidden in Plain Sight

I had written in the February 20, 2022 column that “jobs are hidden in plain sight”! According to government documents, there are 34,65,000 sanctioned posts in government. As of March 2020, there were 8,72,243 vacancies out of which 7,56,146 were in Group C (source: The Hindu). Every section is affected, but none more than the SCs and STs. If 10 lakh persons will be recruited in the next 18 months, that is a good beginning, but the net addition to the jobs already identified will be 10,00,000 minus 8,72,243 or only 1,27,757.

The government has to do much more. There are millions of jobs that have to be ‘identified’ or ‘discovered’ or ‘created’ such as teachers, researchers, librarians, sports coaches, trainers, physio-therapists, counselors, doctors, nurses, para-medics, lab technicians, sanitation and conservancy workers, city planners, architects, agricultural extension officers, food processors, veterinarians, fishers, etc.

These are ‘essential’ jobs in a developing country. Government seems unaware of these opportunities.

Jobs Outside Government

The bulk of the jobs are outside government. They are in the private sector, especially in areas that have not
been explored fully like the oceans, rivers and waterbodies and dry-land agriculture. There is a huge population that has multiple needs that are not satisfied. Fulfilling those needs, even partially, will create millions of jobs. Take personal transport: 24.7 per cent of households do not own a car or a motorbike or a cycle. Or consider household goods: in a tropical country, only 24 per cent of households own an air conditioner or air cooler. Just providing these essential goods at affordable prices to millions of households will vastly expand the country’s manufacturing capacity, create thousands of jobs and make life happier.

Jobs should have been the singular focus of the Modi government. It was not; it wasted 8 years. It used its social and political capital to divide the people of India. Thanks to wrong policies, a divided India also suffered economically. 10 lakh government jobs will not heal the wounds or repair the damage to the economy. It is too little and too late.



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The fallout of the Ukraine crisis and the impact of sanctions imposed on Russia by western nations are set to figure in the deliberations at the upcoming virtual summit of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (Brics) grouping to be hosted by Beijing on June 23. The summit is being held against the backdrop of calls, mainly by China and Russia, to expand the grouping. This is a move aimed at strengthening the influence of China and Russia in the face of tensions with the West. It will also be the first Brics summit since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has posed serious challenges to the established rules-based order and led to a spike in the prices of food and energy.

India has given importance to all meetings of Brics mechanisms — the most recent being national security adviser Ajit Doval’s participation last week in a meeting of senior security officials of the group — despite the strains caused by the standoff with China. This is because Delhi believes that Brics gives an important voice to the aspirations of developing countries and fosters multilateralism. However, it is unlikely that the summit will lead to a major breakthrough, given the pressures on key members and their divergent positions on global issues.

India must proceed cautiously on any move to expand Brics, lest it leads to an organisation that only mirrors the interests of Russia and China. While there is a need to enhance cooperation between Brics and emerging economies, and countries such as Argentina and Indonesia can be potential candidates for an expansion, India should ensure that the opening up of the grouping is in line with its original mandate.



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Since a new short-term recruitment scheme for the armed forces was announced by the government last week, the country has been rocked by violent protests. Under the scheme, Agnipath, men and women between 17.5 and 21 will be inducted for four years in the three services, after which a quarter will be retained. The scheme has polarised India. The government and a section of the defence brass believe that it will lower the average age of the fighting corps, boost youthful energy and technological savvy in the forces, and put a lid on the burgeoning defence pension bill. But for a number of Opposition parties, veterans and a coalition member of the government, the scheme appeared hasty, possibly hurting the combat capacity of the forces.

The debate has two aspects. The first is political, with the administration being found wanting. Defence recruitment is an important aspect of the social and community fabric in many regions, and a major shift away from tradition needed guidance and a soft touch. There is no justification for the violent protests, but the belated and scattershot response in some cases indicated that state and local authorities were either caught unprepared or didn’t anticipate the scale of resentment. To push through a reform of this scale needed more groundwork.

The second is economic and social. It is no coincidence that some of the protests were from regions caught in a cycle of low-paying contractual jobs in underdeveloped economies. That Agnipath appeared to some to be another short-term contract, shorn of the security of a permanent job, pension, and social status, is a social and a political economy problem. The government moved quickly on this, announcing 10% reservation in paramilitary, coast guard, and defence jobs, and priority hiring of decommissioned agniveers in ministry jobs and railways, and educational and financial support for those looking to switch their careers after leaving. This will go a long way in assuaging the concerns of young people, but will need adroit monitoring.

Agnipath is the most ambitious reform in the defence realm in years. To ensure its successful implementation, all sides — the government, forces, aspirants, and civil society — must keep an open mind, be flexible and alert to troubleshooting. But young people will have to ensure that the violence comes to a stop. No amount of frustration with unemployment can be justified to destroy public property. Only discussion and mutual consensus on the way forward will serve the country.



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In January 2022, Nashik became the fifth city in Maharashtra to announce a municipal-level climate action plan. Now there are 40 other cities in the state formulating roadmaps for adaptation and mitigation of the climate crisis. Mumbai aims to become net-zero by 2050 and has a plan for it. Information Technology (IT) hub, Bengaluru, announced similar net-zero goals. More Indian cities will follow, bringing India — the only country in the G20 on track to meet its climate commitments — in line with developed countries where centre-driven action is moving towards a city-driven approach.

There are three drivers behind this shift. One, the growing realisation among state and city policymakers that localised actions are vital to tackling the problem. Two, 40% of the Indian population will be urban by 2030. Three, the increased outreach by international non-profits such as C40, World Resources Institute and Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI) to local governments, is having an effect.

The enormity of these moves cannot be overemphasised. Per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Indian metropolises are up to three times higher than the national average of 1.9 tonnes of CO2eq. According to the 6th assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate crisis-induced heatwaves, flash floods, elevated sea levels, and humidity will make Indian cities uninhabitable without drastic measures. Technically, city plans contain baseline data, GHG emissions inventory, future emissions and ways for select sectors to prioritise action. To calculate GHG emissions, cities rely on tools that comply with the global protocol for community-scale GHG inventories. These inventories cover sectors such as household energy consumption, transportation, waste, industrial processes, agriculture, forestry, and other land use. Other emissions outside the city boundary, such as flights, also called Scope 3 emissions, are not considered.

But Scope 3 emissions have a direct impact on cities, so not including them means cities may not achieve their mitigation targets.

There are other challenges. Generating and monitoring comprehensive urban data is a Herculean task because of bureaucratic and jurisdictional limitations. Inter-agency data-sharing needs enforcement. The Mumbai Climate Action Plan exemplifies these shortcomings: To predict floods, the city uses the mathematical models of the Mumbai Maritime Board instead of the more accurate data of the Indian National Centre for Oceans Information Services, because there is no formal data-sharing arrangement between these two agencies. Most importantly, Indian cities have ignored financial mobilisation. There is limited use of municipal bonds, and almost none of green finance. Those that do do not link these to climate action plans.

Another issue is the misallocation of priorities. Transport causes 12-18% of emissions in Indian cities. City governments across India are procuring e-buses on a large scale for cleaner transport. But unless the grid is decarbonised, switching to an electric fleet may not substantially reduce emissions. Unfortunately, cities have not accounted for the impact of large-scale charging of electric buses on future electricity consumption. Indian power utilities are already collectively bankrupt and unable to even cater to existing demand.

Indian municipal administrations have made heroic efforts to undertake climate action, but they are limited by three structural issues. First, national and state finance commissions must internalise the climate crisis in calculating formulae for financial devolution with states and local bodies, based on vulnerability and mitigation goals. Philanthropic and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funding can catalyse this by partnering with city governments. Second, a subnational framework is needed to develop standard accounting, reporting, and tracking city-level processes and to safeguard climate action against political uncertainties. Third, Indian cities can learn robust citizen participation from cities such as Chicago and London, where individual and collective behaviour modification has been key to successful subnational climate action.

For any local climate action plan to succeed, coalitions working with state and city governments must pressure developed countries to meet their financial pledges made under the Paris Agreement of 2015. Public participation is central: In the absence of public support, political aspirations will drive planning and derail execution.

Damodar Pujari is the climate change fellow at Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. The views expressed are personal



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It was a gorgeous morning in Kausani, Uttrakhand’s most picturesque hill station. When I woke up, I noticed that the sun had begun its ascent. I got ready quickly and went for a long stroll. The ambience was full of paradoxes.

On the one hand, the cool, clean breeze flowing through the dense foliage soothed the soul, while on the other, the forests on the hill were flaring up. The carbon dioxide from this fire was bound to negate the benefits of clean air.

Kausani has changed dramatically over time. Once, this peaceful hill town played a significant role in the lives of many of our country’s leading lights. One of them is the Father of the Nation. When Mahatma Gandhi arrived here in June 1929 from Andhra Pradesh, he was in poor health. The bright mornings of Kausani made such an impact on him that he authored his famous book Anasakti Yoga based on the Srimad Bhagavad Gita in just two weeks.

Apart from the Anasakti Ashram where Gandhiji stayed, there is Sumitranandan Pant Gallery, a museum dedicated to the great Hindi poet who was born here. Pant’s poetry is known for its romanticism inspired by nature’s beauty. Kausani gave so much to great people like Gandhi and Pant, but what happened to it? Not only Kausani, but the entire Himalayan region appears to be pleading for help.

It is unfortunate that deadly forest fires are raging from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. According to the Forest Survey of India, there were 1,141 major forest fires in the last week of March alone. According to the survey, 22% of India’s forests are vulnerable to fire.

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) issued a report in February this year which said that “despite ambitious efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, there has been a dramatic increase in the incidence of catastrophic fires on the earth.” And the number of bushfire seasons like Australia’s Black Summer is expected to rise by 31-57% by the end of the century.

No continent has been spared. The smouldering in the Amazon forests of Brazil terrified the entire world the same year. This forest area alone emits 20% of the world’s total oxygen.

Our planet’s temperature is constantly rising due to fire and other factors. This has an immediate impact on glaciers. According to researchers from the University of Leeds in England, all of the world’s glaciers have shrunk by 40%. Scientists from the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology in Dehradun have stated several times that the Gangotri’s glacier is melting by 15 to 20 cm per year. Union environment minister Bhupendra Yadav confirmed in the Rajya Sabha in March that the glacier has lost 0.23 sq km in the last 15 years. He did not rule out the possibility of black carbon affecting the Gangotri glacier.

What exactly is black carbon, though?

According to PS Negi, a scientist at the Wadia Institute, black carbon is a “particulate matter”. Its presence raises temperatures, causing glaciers to melt. It is the only pollutant that is harmful to both humans and the environment. However, according to a Cato Institute research paper, the Himalayas are still unaffected by global warming. They also reject the assertion that all glaciers will melt by 2035. They believe that the Ganga and the Brahmaputra rivers will not dry up.

The Sanskrit proverb Munde-Munde matirbhina (as the heads differ, so does the thinking) applies to scientists too. This explains why their claims are so contradictory. In this month’s report of The Environment Preference Index (EPI), India was ranked last out of 180 countries. Yale and Columbia Universities in the US collaborated on this report. Every two years, the report is published. This time, India is below even Myanmar, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Pakistan. The researchers had previously ranked India at 168. The Indian government, predictably, dismissed it as a ranking based on “biased metrics and biased weights.”

Irrespective of what experts and scientists claim, it is undeniable that everyone everywhere is experiencing a shift in the heat and rain cycle. Mango flowers had arrived earlier this year in the orchards of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. I met a lot of farmers and nature lovers while travelling around the hilly region of Kumaon. They all claim that it has harmed not only crops but also other living creatures, almost in a similar way.

One thing is certain: This is the moment for everyone to exercise caution. It is not only necessary to strengthen laws and regulations, but it is also imperative that they must be strictly enforced.

Shashi Shekhar is editor-in-chief, Hindustan 

The views expressed are personal



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The Agnipath scheme rolled out by the government has been welcomed by the armed forces. They have played an instrumental role in its conception. The defence minister and the top brass of the three services have gone to great lengths to elaborate the scope and content of the path-breaking reform. The government has subsequently announced support measures for Agniveers – including 10% reservation in the Coast Guard, defence Public Sector Units (PSUs), Central Armed Police Forces and Assam Rifles, age relaxation in the first year, preference in state police recruitment, and enhancement of their educational abilities and employability.

In a democracy, there are bound to be differing perspectives on major transformative changes. However, incidents of arson and violence are condemnable and appear to be instigated by vested interests and a deliberate misinformation campaign. There are millions of Indian youth who do not make it to the armed forces through the regular recruitment process, and yet, they have never engaged in vandalism in the past.

Veterans have always played a constructive role in shaping the debates around defence and national security. One expects them to support their colleagues who now occupy the same positions of responsibility that they once did. Contrary to apprehensions expressed by some members of the strategic community, Agnipath is still akin to a pilot project, given the limited numbers that will be recruited initially. Moreover, the defence minister has the complete authority to make further refinements in the scheme.

Agniveers will enter service with better technical skills, given their background in institutes such as the Industrial Training Institutions and National Skills Qualifications Framework. This is important in view of the growing sophistication of the weapons systems operated by the armed forces. The majority of the relatively younger Agniveers will be free of family responsibilities. Under pressure to perform their best to make the transition to the regular stream, they will be highly motivated. An emphasis on merit for retention will help promote professionalism. The scheme envisages that our armed forces will eventually have 50% Agniveers. Alongside the experienced regulars, they will form the backbone of the combat units.

Concerns that repeated assessments of Agniveers will bog down the Commanding Officers (COs) of units are equally ill-founded. The existing practice is that all units, under the guidance of their COs, are required to undertake regular reviews of non-commissioned officers and junior commissioned officers for promotions. The assessment process for Agniveers will be no different.

The existing training infrastructure will be adequate. The shorter training period of six months will make it possible to run two training cycles in a single calendar year and, in fact, free up existing capacities.

It was repeatedly proved during World War II as well as after the 1962 debacle with China that emergency commissions or short service commissions, respectively, had no limiting effect on motivation or raw courage in action. Most of the gallantry awardees in war and peacetime have a very youthful profile. Hence, the more youthful the armed forces are, the better.

The government and the armed forces have clarified that the highest priority will be attached to the resettlement of demobilised Agniveers. They will be provided multiple opportunities to embark on new careers. Apart from financial packages through the Seva Nidhi scheme, bank loans will be provided to those who wish to become entrepreneurs; others, who wish to pursue higher studies or acquire vocational skills, will be supported through bridging courses and admissions to colleges. Corporate houses have welcomed the Agnipath scheme and expressed willingness to recruit outgoing Agniveers.

The focus of the Agnipath scheme is on meeting the urgent need of the armed forces for a more youthful force, one that is more combat-effective. Currently, there are only about 250,000 soldiers in the Indian Army who are below 25 years of age — out of a total of about 1.1 soldiers. This problem has been building up over the decades. The technological modernisation of the armed forces makes it imperative that steps be taken to ensure an improved “tooth to tail” ratio. This will mean outsourcing many logistics and support functions currently performed by regular soldiers. Cuts in support elements will not affect the combat units. At the same time, the worry that the numerical strength of the armed forces will be reduced in the long-run is unfounded. Agnipath entails a gradual scaling up of numbers, leading to the recruitment of 90,000 Agniveers by the 5th year of implementation and 127,500 Agniveers by 2030.

There is little doubt that the Agnipath scheme will meet the growing aspirations of young people. The scheme will be open to both men and women and their intake will be decided by the armed forces in keeping with their own needs and assessments. The youth will serve the nation through the armed forces and not merely look upon the time-honoured profession of soldiering as just a job. Even now, there are many in the armed forces who wish to leave before the mandatory service period, but cannot do so. The Agnipath scheme will provide for such an early release.

The government has given the armed forces adequate leeway to handle the Agnipath scheme. The nation should repose faith in their judgment and abilities. Subjecting the armed forces and their recruitment policies to fish bowl scrutiny without giving them a fair opportunity to take things forward is ill-advised and definitely not in the national interest.

Sujan Chinoy is the director-general of the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi 

The views expressed are personal



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The turmoil caused by the Agnipath scheme is not ebbing yet, and it is sad to see the violence. For those backing the scheme, the advantages include India’s youth being exposed to a disciplined life and a pool of young talent available for the defence forces, among others. In my view, it is time to take a dispassionate view of the plan.

Agnipath has struck at a basic fundamental of the armed forces — how does a nation equip its fighting forces? It is a radical departure from a methodology that was arrived at over two centuries for the Indian Army and many decades for the Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force (IAF). Such a fundamental churn should have been implemented in stages through pilot projects, just the way short service commissions and the entry of women was done in different branches.

Of course, there is likely to be no dearth of volunteers, considering the unemployment, and this may be seen as a success of the scheme. But spare a thought for the 75% of new young recruits who will be looking for a new job after four years. Lateral movement into the police forces and government departments has, till now, been a mirage – I retired after 40 years in service listening to such promises. It can be done only if the government issues orders with enforceable, judicially acceptable reservation quotas, not preferential consideration for the agniveers. A good first step is the government announcement of 10% reservation for agniveers in the Central Armed Police Forces, Assam Rifles, and MoD.

Let’s talk about the professional upliftment of the forces that Agnipath is supposed to bring in. Ask any field commander who his go to people for executing tasks are — they are personnel with four to five years of service who have the right mix of training, experience and youthful exuberance. In Agnipath, 75% of such agniveers would be bid goodbye; the armed forces would be losing human resource at a stage when combatants would be ideally placed to form the business end of the stick.

In IAF, at the four-year service stage, an aircraft technician is barely reaching the expertise of signing for the servicing of an aeroplane – till then he is an apprentice working under the tutelage of a senior. Thereafter, he undergoes training again for the more specialised second-line servicing and comes back to add experience to the unit pool; any short-cut here would be disastrous. The same would hold true for the other two services.

Sometime in the beginning of this century, IAF tried the Just in Time Training (JITT) concept. At the training stage, airmen were given basic aircraft knowledge and sent to flying units. These JITT airmen were to work and learn in the field under experienced tradesmen and after some two-odd years go back to training institutions for the next qualification – just in time. But, practical realities required airmen to do guard and escort duties and other routine unit tasks; experienced technicians could not be spared so JITT airmen were detailed, resulting in them not being trained in the field. To cut a long story short, no commanding officer wanted a JITT airman under him and IAF had to recall this profile; a new idea failed because it was not well thought through.

The Agnipath scheme is much more complicated – it may have a raft of social ramifications when a large body of weapon-trained men and women are sent back into society, many of whom without a stable job for the next four to five decades of active life. The talk of having instilled discipline, valour, nationalism and jazba or passion (as stated by the government) during the four years in uniform will weigh heavily against the pressures of an unemployed existence. Would any corporate firm hire a person seen as a reject of the armed forces?

A key aim of this whole exercise appears to be reducing the ballooning pension bill of the armed forces. But this is shortsighted. The way Agnipath has been constructed brings to mind a statement of Indian Navy veteran, Commander KP Sanjeev Kumar, “ If you think pension is expensive, try defeat.”

Postscript: At present, a recruit is called a soldier, sailor or airman. Why, under Agnipath, should he or she be called by a different name if the nation expects both to be combatants ready to offer the supreme sacrifice? Why should there be a different class of soldier (wearing an identifying insignia) in the only organisation where there is a common solitary dharma — service before self? Please pause and rethink.

Manmohan Bahadur is a former air-vice marshal, and former additional director general, Centre for Air Power Studies 

The views expressed are personal



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There was a time when everyone would catch a cheap flight to Europe at the slightest excuse. But now travel has become a nightmare as airlines had drastically cut down staff during the pandemic, and the situation has still not improved. Brexit regulations have also meant long queues for those with visas coming in or going out of London. Therefore, “staycations” are the order of the day —  and why not?  — as the weather has been, largely, glorious. Which means it has been mostly bright and sunny! Besides, Ascot is back with the big hats. (Somehow the Jubilee has left us all with a passion for hats).  And finally West End has shows which are running full house.

Indeed, the day we saw “The Father and the Assassin” at the National Theatre — about Nathuram Godse’s shooting of Mahatma Gandhi, it was a packed house. Very well produced by Indhu Rubasingham and cleverly constructed by Anupama Chandrasekhar, the play weaves in and out of Godse’s life — from the early days when he was brought up as a girl to his young life as an oracle and then an absent-minded tailor and so on. While these elements were well presented ( with an ample use of imagination ) it was Godse, being played almost like an impish stand up act — that tended to wipe away any nuances.  If you are looking for revelations and insights or psychodrama —-then this may not be the play: but it does give you a quick whisk through the freedom struggle, and the aftermath of the Partition. Sometimes too quick. For instance, Godse’s speech in his own defence could have been used to give the play an edge  — but like many other crucial bits of information which could have made the play more powerful, that too is missing. Interesting, nonetheless.  

 

Of course, the politics here competes constantly with showbiz for controversy. Now, home secretary Priti Patel has shocked everyone by executing a bold scheme to transport all illegal immigrants to Rwanda. Prince Charles has already expressed his dislike of the plan (he spoke in private but unfortunately it was leaked). The Archbishop of Canterbury has also protested, and the matter has even been taken to court. But it all seems too late as that ship has sailed.

And did I say we could holiday in the UK? …Perhaps not, actually!  Because, travel is going to become increasingly tough. Just next week we have a rail strike which will make travelling to and from London close to impossible. We have not had this experience for years. So we have to wait and see what ingenious ways Londoners find to manage their commuting. Cycling, rollerskating, even swimming down the Thames? But Londoners thrive on such collective hardships. Or they can just stay where they are and have a pint — as medics have just discovered that a glass of beer improves your bacterial health. We can test that theory in the difficult days coming up!

 

And a very pleasant place to test the theory — I can vouch for this — is either Tamesis Dock and or the Battersea Barge on the Thames in Central London. Both are lovely and lively boats permanently moored on the river — offering spectacular views of many of London’s highlights including the palace of Westminster, the London Eye, the Shard and the Battersea power station. Apart from the sights — you could also share your sundowner with seals, cormorants, swans, gulls and ducks which fly, waddle and swim close by.

 

And there may be some live music from well known groups — as well as visits by multiple Grammy award winners, and other celebrities ( which the owners are too coy to tell us about ) …so that’s the place to be seen at, too.

These restaurants/pubs on the river were dreamt up by Mangalore born Nithin and Neema Rai, brother and sister, who moved to Britain as children.  Having, respectively, acquired a PhD in biophysics and a masters in international law, they embarked on a new adventure combining their experiences with hospitality while using the boats for further research and development! Yes, while you munch through your canapés or pizza, and knock back that cocktail — there are some interesting experiments ongoing below deck…

 

The war in Ukraine is troubling us all — but there was a bitter-sweet moment when Ukraine won the Eurovision Song Contest this year. The victory means that they could host the competition next year if peace were to suddenly break out! However, this looks unlikely — and so London might get a chance to stage the Eurovision contest next year instead. In the days of the Beatles and Cliff Richard, UK would effortlessly top this sort of competition but subsequently it has set an unblemished record of being always close to the bottom in the rankings.  However, this year UK came second so there is some logic in getting this opportunity.

 

But still — one hopes that the music in Ukraine keeps ringing out loud and clear over the cacophony of the war.



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We are, tragically, becoming a republic of violence. Most civilised societies suffer from sporadic outbursts of collective and spontaneous acts of violence. Though shameful, these can be understood as exceptions, when no one tries to condone such actions, everyone rises to a level of fairness to condemn them and society takes steps to prevent their recurrence.

But a vicious cycle of organised violence in an environment marked by the deepening of political divide and a deficit of trust and mutual respect rising faster than inflation, fanned by hatred — communal and sectarian, is creating a nation held in a perpetual thrall of weaponised narratives and mass-manufactured outrages.

 

In imagining threats to our cherished beliefs, faiths and values, we have collectively become so gullible as to act like endangered beings, far too easy to provoke and retaliate, to boil and to burst.

In trying to protect ourselves from such easily imagined and amplified risks, we are blind enough to destroy the real and the existing — as a dark future a motivated polity prevails on us to be anxious about becomes our present state and by our own hand.

We have abandoned sanity and reason, moderation and reasonableness, calm and sangfroid and, above all, common decency and thus are responding to calls aimed deliberately at speaking to our untamed collective beast.

 

Farmers, students, jobless, women, minorities, majority, poor or powerful — everyone is ready to step out on the streets in a misguided belief that massive social change, a worthwhile social transformation and a metamorphosis in our national condition can be brought about merely by pelting the nearest target with stones.

There is abundant accumulated angst amongst the youth about jobs and their insecurities may be a good recipe for rage as it has been with religious minorities and farmers before; but as Indians we must try to remember a historic truth — we were born a modern nation, carved out of an ancient civilisation by a set of founding fathers who chiselled our ethos while faced up against one of the worst tyrannies of imperialism. During this time, it was democratic protest that came to be one of their most important tools.

 

The biggest problem with violence is not only that it is unsustainable or self-destructive, but that it takes away from us appreciating and putting to use the power of united, resilient, non-violent protest. It renders our anger impotent. How much can we burn? How much petrol there is, and what would we do when we can’t find any more stones?

The destruction of railway trains, the most innocent of mute, lifeless bystanders of all, should be condemned by those who oppose Agnipath or are the opponents of the Narendra Modi-led NDA government.

 

Let us end all violence in the name of protest. You don’t have a right to destroy another citizen, or their property. There can be no more commas in this saga of violent retaliation against the policies and rules of the present-day government; it must end with a full stop. Period.



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There is anger in the streets of India, almost as intense as during the caste-based agitation in 2015. That agitation too was about “rozi-roti” (daily bread) and this too is the same; the question of jobs. With pragmatic intent, the Central government has assumed responsibility for the creation of additional jobs in the country. One of the ways is by changing the terms and conditions for recruitment in the armed forces. The aim is financial saving by reducing the pension outflow, achieving a younger age profile of service personnel, compensating enhanced technological footprint by optimising manpower, bringing terms and conditions in sync with international norms and understanding, and giving more young people a chance to serve the nation.

All this needs to be explained properly. It is a complex issue as are most human resource management issues concerning the Armed Forces.

 

When a system existing for 75 years is suddenly altered and that too drastically, there is bound to be consternation, bewilderment and disappointment if the new initiatives are not clearly understood. We need to be clear that there is no cleaner and more motivating job in the country than the profession of soldiering. Thus far all those selected to be soldiers followed a career path which lasted at least 15 years and could take them up to 30 years with a pension to boot (for life), with ownership of welfare and medical treatment also taken by the Armed Forces. Both the comfort level of those selected and the aspirations of those seeking to join the Armed Forces were extremely high. The “Agnipath” scheme has probably upset that comfort level. The youth and many others are perceiving the scheme with limited imagination and unable to perceive the positives for them in the scheme. Before explaining that, it’s also important to mention an important observation. The Agnipath recruitment scheme was probably supposed to be initiated in 2020 or so. The Covid-19 pandemic prevented that happening for two years and created a set of youth who probably have got left behind due to becoming overage. The government has been quick to respond when this was probably pointed out and has shown a proclivity towards flexibility and reason by enhancing the upper limit of the entry age from 21 to 23 years.

 

That should rest some of the angst although it will increase the number of aspirants for the 46,000 recruitment slots that have been announced.

The average age of the soldier at the level of “other ranks” is being reported as 32, which many concede is way too high and must be reduced. This was one of the factors which probably influenced the terms and conditions to make it contractual for four years, including a 24- weeks period for entry level basic training (down from 36 weeks).

We will in due course hear more about specialised training for the technical and equipment-intensive components in the case of the Army. If that too is kept at anything between 12-24 weeks, the availability of an “Agniveer” soldier to his unit will be reduced to about three years. In those three years count the leave period, and effectively a trained soldier in which the government is investing a fair amount would be available for physical duty for just about two years and six months. The question being asked by many is whether this is sufficient bang for the buck being invested. In the spirit of feedback and flexibility with which the government has correctly responded, it could reconsider the period of engagement. Seven years would be a workable duration; it would mean a little less than half the current contractual period for colour service, of course minus the pension and medical benefits. The latter are linked to the financial aspects for which this scheme has evolved in the first place. The impact would be that the intended reduction in average age would not take place. The latter could be acceptable to the armed forces even if it came down marginally below 30 years.

 

Another factor being pointed out is that the scheme is being rolled out without a trial, a pilot project or a test bed, which is the usual system to optimise the proposal by taking full feedback from the ground and bringing to light the glitches. Perhaps it’s the two-year delay due to the coronavirus pandemic and the fact that there was no recruitment for that period which has triggered the decision to go ahead without a testbed trial. This issue can be overcome simply by ensuring that the first two years of the implementation are treated as a pilot scheme, with various formations and units serving in different operational environments nominated to give focused feedback with recommendations. The flexibility shown in amending the age limit for 2022 gives a lot of hope that feedback from the ground will be given a serious look.

 

It is battle effectiveness that we are most concerned about. Any decision on the management of the Armed Forces has ultimately to weigh all innovations and changes against the overall impact on operational effectiveness or the ability to achieve victory in the battlefield for the nation. That is what the analyses of the “Agnipath” scheme should be looking at in great detail.

Different forms of modelling should be used, factoring awareness, skill and technological proficiency, training and motivation to determine whether any compromise will take place. While on this, some observers are pointing out that the Armed Forces may have bitten off too much in terms of the changes that are being attempted, from HR-related complete change in the recruitment policy to “atma nirbharta” in terms of weapons and equipment and many doctrines needing organisational restructuring, changes in order of battle and redeployment, and finally “theatrisation” there is a sea change afoot in India’s security domain. All this is happening in the face of live and developing threats from both China and Pakistan and the continuing internal security issues. However, when cumulative threats are building against the nation, it is perhaps best to assume a transformational approach to national security. Transformation always means wholescale uprooting of the old and planting of the new. “Agnipath” is a subset of the transformational approach.

 

A progressive feedback-induced system to implement it will perhaps meet the requirements, but first, the angst among India’s youth population should be doused through a more comprehensive information campaign to convince them to give the new scheme a chance.



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Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s wonderment about how history can be revisited is as much pregnant with political meaning as the call of home minister Amit Shah on its need. “History is what it is. History is history,” Mr Kumar said in reply to Mr Shah’s statement that “we can write our own history.”

While the home minister who had his political baptism in the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) has reasons to complain that most historians ignored great Indian rulers and empires such as the Cholas and the Pandyas and focussed on Mughals, Mr Kumar, brought up in the Lohia school of socialism yet remaining a bed fellow of the right wing, knows what will happen if the ruling dispensation embarks on writing history in a way it wants to.

 

It is not a secret that the RSS wants to change the way Indians and others see the history of this ancient land. Its roadmap for 21st century India is a comprehensive project, as per its own ideologues. It involves rectifying “falsehoods and misrepresentations”, including events it deems to be important, launching university research to reclaim the “real” Indian history and exposing what it calls “perverse imagination masquerading as historical-literary works”. Several BJP-ruled states including Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh are at present on the project so that students get to study a history that the project envisages.

 

It is not just history that the BJP and RSS want to take a relook at; science is also on the radar. It was none other than Narendra Modi who, while inaugurating the Indian Science Congress immediately after taking over as Prime Minister, drooled over the scientific prowess of India’s past and said the birth of Karna was a result of genetic science and Lord Ganesh’s head was the handiwork of a plastic surgeon.

If science with its rigours of quantitative evidence generation can be reinterpreted, then it will not be all that tough to do the same with the social sciences. Welcome to the brave new world of Indian history, protestations of the Nitish Kumars notwithstanding.



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When are you too old to learn something new?

“Never too old” sounds like a readymade pap answer.

 

Some pre-digested pabulum that a slimy sly snake-oil salesman guru might sell you. Together with lots of guff about self-belief and affirmation.
The thing is, what’s old?

When I was 10, and here I am no different from anyone else, I thought 40 was about the limit that humans could reach. I mean that was ‘old’.
Notice how only the very young say things like, “in my whole life, I’ve never seen a swing” or whatever? To a six-year-old, your whole life has not yet been affected by the tedium of it all. When you were five, everything was different than when you were four. What you could do, what you were allowed to do. Jumping to six is a massive milestone.

 

It is only later, much later, that you can’t really tell the difference between 32 and 33.

But then, even minus them gurus, personal life coaches, online talkers and influencers, you do learn new things all the time. Minus any hype.
The mobile phone itself is responsible for magic.

Not just the fact that today’s phones have stronger computers than man took to the Moon or that took man to the Moon. Which is scary enough in itself.

The old desktop computers, well, my parents found them annoying while they were in their late 50s and early 60s. My Father decided that a computer was impossible to handle without a secretary which was a little difficult after he retired. He also decided there was no life minus Outlook Express because that’s what he used in his office. Therefore, he forced his decidedly dimwit computer tech person to configure his yahoo mail to outlook. Every email took about 30 minutes to arrive via those old squeaky modems. And god forbid there was a power cut. O boy. Back to the beginning.

 

After 10 years of this nonsense my sister and I just chucked out the system and got him a Gmail account. He took to it like a duck to water and then pretended he had never insisted on outlook at all!

From there he mastered his smartphone, his tablet, his e-book and used them faster than we could.

My Mother decided she wanted to use the desktop. She was by far machine and tech savvier than my Father. And plus, had never been blessed or burdened with a secretary. Since her children were elsewhere at the times, she was taught to use a computer by a friend. Who very meticulously wrote down in an exercise book: switch on computer, put finger on mouse, et cetera. Three days of this my Mother threw her hands up saying it was too irritating!

 

Come the next holiday, I just put on the machine and told her to explore. A few hours later, she was researching her specialised interests and a couple of days later livestreaming Federer matches which TV would not show!

So, it’s not age maybe but whatever’s in your head that stops you from doing something. And sometimes, the younger you are the more curmudgeonly you are.

I was. Set in my ways. Over-sure of myself. Quite annoying. Or maybe I’m just falling headlong into that other cliché: you mellow as you grow older.
Some do, and some don’t.

 

Maybe you can choose – as long as your brain and mind and heart are on your side and are in sync – which way you want to walk.

One of my grandfathers loved the fact that he could say what he liked without people being shocked because he was old! He must have been around 70 then. In the society I keep right now, that’s considered a young age!

A grandmother on the other hand went out of her way to shock people just to laugh at their reactions. Old women are supposed to behave in a way which she rejected.

You know you go through that phase when you know more than your parents, somewhere from 12 to 30-odd?

 

And then it ends.

I learnt in my 40s, from my Mother, how to find a passion and stick to it no matter what. That was tennis, and Roger Federer. Tennis was always in our lives. But we decided, together, to make it fulltime. So, no matter how cold it was, no matter if she felt ill or was ill, she would drag herself out of bed at whatever time, to watch tennis.

I would too, but sometimes just to keep up with her. I lost that zest when she died. For five years I’ve tried to find the groove and failed. I want to do it, so badly, for her and myself. All those questions I have about her other main interest: religion. A devout atheist I called her, because she believed nothing and knew everything. What would she make of today’s India? I shudder at her pain.

 

From my Father I learnt, in my late 50s, about astronomy and the Second World War. We always knew he knew these things. And he shared a lot through our lives. But we embarked over the past few years on an in-depth exploration, listening to lectures, him reading to me, watching documentaries and discussing our insignificance in the face of the expanse of the Universe. In December 2021, the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope was one of the last things we watched together. So excited was he about the new science that was to be found, as James Webb looked back over 13 billion years to the origins of the Universe.

 

I want to know, I want to follow, I want to continue. I have a backlog of lectures bookmarked from Frank Summers on Eta Carinae to Cameron Hummels on the formation of galaxies. But since my Father died, everything reminds me of him. There are so many things I don’t understand, in this newfound interest that he sparked. Who will I ask? Who will explain as only he could?

Maybe then, it’s not about how old you are. Maybe it’s about how old you make yourself out to be. And maybe, when it comes to your parents, the actual question is: when do you stop growing up?



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The 2022 report on digital news consumption shows interesting trends and raises questions. This annual report by Reuters Institute at Oxford University tracks public trust in media in 46 countries, including India. The previous (2021) report showed an increase in that trust, and was attributed to a “pandemic bump”: Much of the news was focused on the Covid-19 pandemic; the media depends more on official sources during crises; and arguably, the jump reflects this connection.

Countering that trend was the politics around the pandemic, and it seems people had an overdose of that part, frustrating the usability of news. That brief honeymoon for the news media seems to be over. This year, trust levels have fallen again, albeit higher than pre-pandemic years’ trends. (The pandemic isn’t really over.) Only 42 per cent of respondents said they trust news. The United States records the lowest trust, at 26 per cent, while it’s highest in Finland, where 69 per cent find it trustworthy.

 

The US media lost as many as three percentage points of trust over last year. Independent news portals and YouTube-based channels, including corporate-funded ones, have emerged. But trust deficit is back.

The louder pre-alarm alarm for the news media in India and elsewhere is that not only has trust been declining, interest in news appears to have fallen across the world: a huge plunge from 63 per cent last year to 52 per cent this year. The India sample prominently comprises younger urban media users, so this underlines future consumption patterns. Over the past two decades, television news media has hyped content, generated a continuous spectacle around our lives, triggered an atmosphere of anxiety, and attempted to redefine truths in consumer-driven ways.

 

Arguably, the decline in interest would have been steeper in the absence of this year’s most sustained news event: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Can this be the beginning of a settling down process after two decades of hype, spectacle and self-aggrandisation of the audio-visual news media?

There is another significant observation in digital news consumption, something the report calls “selective avoidance”. While a startling 42 per cent of respondents said they avoid news completely, a high 72 per cent said they avoid news occasionally. The reasons should be evident -- impacts on mood, weariness from the sheer quantum of news, and driver of interpersonal conflicts. Television and then the Internet successfully replaced newspapers to a damaging extent. But with the drama on TV and the unreliability of Internet-based information, this avoidance should be seen as a factor of trust. If I don’t trust something, I am not likely to buy it, much less buy into it.

 

We should also view this trend as a part of a longer-term process: Joseph Klapper observed over 60 years ago that people only selectively expose their attention to, perceive and retain media messages. More recent extensions to that study have included observations around selective attention, selective distortion, selective interaction, and influences of the availability of information on selectivity, of echo chambers and filter bubbles, and so on.

On the other hand, selective avoidance points to a conscious act of de-selection. So why is this occurring?

 

Selective avoidance may explain why a majority of people distrust a news brand. When a reader selects a media story, they automatically select the media platform. Researchers have called this co-selection. But if that selection becomes deliberate and repeated (such as subscribing to a newspaper), this co-selection becomes equivalent to brand loyalty. But social media and digital aggregation of news (as on Google News) have confounded this process.

In the digital media ecosystem, we no longer need to seek news. Instead, news finds us. As algorithms do this job of finding us, the phenomenon of news-finds-us has also resulted in an expectation that a wide spectrum of news will “find us”. A 2017 study shows that individuals who believe news will find them are less likely to use traditional news sources and, over time, are less knowledgeable on politics. Meanwhile, the digital \desks of news channels and newspapers are producing news stories specifically for social media consumption. This further complicates things because stories are competing to attain better visibility — thus creating more content that blurs the boundaries between content genres. Many Facebook users (23 per cent from India) told the Reuters-Oxford survey that there is “too much news” on their feed. So, we may ask, is the difference between information, opinion, entertainment and promotion on social media effectively becoming blurred? The conflation of news and content means we cannot define news in the same way as before.

 

The Reuters-Oxford research does not study content, but should lead us to probe how content fits into the consumption picture. The most fundamental difference between news and content is that while news is autonomous, content is controlled. Of course, management of news — at source, production and dissemination levels — is controlled. That’s to say, bereft of all control, news is inherently autonomous because it is based on incident, upon which a media event is mounted and influential sources hop on the bandwagon of media events.

 

Concerningly for news producers, many respondents said they don’t understand the news.

Perhaps the biggest question for news platforms from this survey is how to reclaim brand loyalty from the clutter. Building contexts for better comprehension will lead to a linear, longitudinal consumption of news. But it is also important not to look at the Reuters-Oxford study as a brand-related exercise alone, and also to reinvest in the development of news in such a way that the media user can contextualise issues more fruitfully and understand their world better. Perhaps that would be the beginning of a serious attempt to “reclaim” the news.

 

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