Editorials - 13-03-2022

It was not a bad slogan and indeed a worthy cause, but the tenor of the gathering indicated that it came from an old Congress playbook from a time when the language of political power was English.

In Mumbai on Marine Drive days before the election results came, I was on my morning walk when I noticed what looked like a carnival. Young girls in red with Priyanka Gandhi’s slogan ‘ladki hoon, lad sakti hoon’ written on their shirts were gathered around a stage from which a man kept yelling, ‘Give it up for the girls. They are now coming in thick and fast.’ It was a marathon organised to show that the Congress party was behind the cause of empowering women and, if anyone missed this, they needed only to look at the huge posters of Indira Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu and other Congress ladies, to be certain that this was a promotion for the cause Priyanka had identified with in the hope of winning Uttar Pradesh.

It was not a bad slogan and indeed a worthy cause, but the tenor of the gathering indicated that it came from an old Congress playbook from a time when the language of political power was English. There was a fake, brittle quality to the event and I was mulling over this when I heard cries of ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Jai Shri Ram’ from another part of Marine Drive. Here there was a yoga class coming to an end and the chants that marked its conclusion were spontaneous and natural. These were not BJP partisans, but they related to Modi’s ‘new’ India. This India was born in 2014. Before then we were ruled by leaders who spoke English and whose main purpose for being in politics was to ensure that their progeny inherited their constituencies and their political parties.

It is true that there are people like this in Modi’s BJP, but in his election speeches this time it was not accidental that he kept repeating that this was a fight between his kind of politics and ‘parivarvaad’ or dynastic democracy. Akhilesh Yadav tried often during the campaign to mock the Prime Minister for not having a family. He dismissed his ‘parivaarvaad’ charge as a distraction. The main issues, he said, were unemployment, poverty, broken promises to farmers and a general economic decline. Yes. These are the real issues, but somehow India’s voters believe that the old political parties that are run like family firms will never be able to find solutions. They believe this because they have failed them in the past and appear to have learned nothing new in the seven years in which Narendra Modi has towered over the political landscape like a Colossus.

Modi has proved that in the ‘new’ India, it is he who will decide what the narrative should be, and that this narrative will include hyper-nationalism, Hindutva, self-reliance and massive investment in welfare schemes and infrastructure. He has made it clear that this is what he stands for and shown that even when he makes mistakes, as he did during the second, lethal upsurge of the pandemic last summer, he can rectify them and move on. When it was discovered that his government had failed to order enough vaccinations on time, he covered this up by massive propaganda about India having set in motion the ‘largest vaccination programme in the world’.

In sharp contrast, our ‘secular’ political parties have not been able to explain to voters what it is they stand for. The Congress party’s two main leaders seem to have no idea at all what they should stand for. Rahul Gandhi devotes most of his speeches to yelling about Modi being a thief who works only for the interests of his ‘four rich friends’. His sister Priyanka seems to believe that the only contribution she can make is to keep talking about the glories and sacrifices of her father and grandmother. She seems not to have noticed yet that most Indian voters are too young to remember them. When all else fails, Rahul and Priyanka end up emulating Modi by going off to some temple and ensuring that TV reporters record every worshipful moment.

The message to me personally from the results that came from Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur and Goa is that people are willing to give Modi chance after chance because they see no alternative at all. Modi’s political and economic failures have been staggering since his second term began. The protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the farm laws were handled disastrously and there have been no dazzling achievements in the handling of Covid or the economy. The state of national security can be gauged from China’s land grab in Ladakh. The manner in which Hindutva is spreading has caused deep divisions between Hindus and Muslims. But, somehow India has changed into a country in which ordinary people who did not believe their leaders were made of the same cloth and culture as themselves now seem to believe that Modi can be trusted.

He seems to them to represent change, and change is what they want. Nowhere is this more evident than in Punjab. As a fellow Jat Sikh said to me, ‘We are giving AAP a chance because the others have all let us down.’ In Uttar Pradesh voters have been disappointed with Yogi Adityanath, but they are willing to give him a second chance because they know that Akhilesh Yadav may be young, energetic, and charismatic, but that Modi is right when he charged him with representing that old disease of ‘parivarvaad’.



Read in source website

P Chidambaram writes: We have just witnessed the results of elections in five states that are as different as the five fingers of a hand. I followed the course of the elections in three of the five states and shall therefore restrict my observations to those states.

Once upon a time, the right to rule over people was a divine right. That notion has been discarded in most countries of the world. Other systems of government have replaced monarchy. Democracy is one such system. It is a human invention that allows citizens of a State to change their rulers through a vote. Winston Churchill once said that “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.” India chose democracy despite all its faults. Among different democratic systems, we chose the ‘first past the post system’ despite its sometimes bizarre outcomes.

Punjab, UP and Goa

We have just witnessed the results of elections in five states that are as different as the five fingers of a hand. I followed the course of the elections in three of the five states and shall therefore restrict my observations to those states.

Elections were held in UP, the most populous state with an Assembly of 403 legislators; in Punjab, a middle-size (117 seats) but a turbulent border state; and in Goa, the smallest state, with only 40 legislators. The common thread in the election narrative in the three states was ‘change vs continuity’. By and large, the BJP was the protagonist of continuity, the Congress (and AAP in Punjab) the protagonist of change. The outcome: continuity trumped over change, except in Punjab. The undisputed winner was the BJP.

In Goa, there was a desire for change. Two days before the counting, as I settled down in my seat on a flight, a lady took her seat next to me and said, very audibly, “Just win, just win.” There was a strong undercurrent in Goa that spelt c-h-a-n-g-e. When the votes were counted, it became clear that 66 per cent of the voters had actually voted for change, but the outcome spelt c-o-n-t-i-n-u-i-t-y!

Change, but no change

Within an hour of the declaration of results in all 40 constituencies of Goa, the usual residents and holidayers in beachwear were strolling on the Miramar and swarms of people were taking pictures of themselves on the steps of the Church of Mary Immaculate Conception. The undercurrent of change had seemingly disappeared altogether, leaving one wondering ‘What was the commotion of the elections about?’. The only bunch of bewildered people were the candidates (among them eight belonging to the Congress and expected to win) who had campaigned for change and had lost by small margins ranging from 169 to 1,647 votes. Of the eight, six lost to BJP candidates, and the tables were turned.

The Congress had thrown everything it had into the elections in the three states. In Punjab, it changed its chief minister, challenged the entrenched power structure by boldly putting a Dalit in the chair, and sought continuity with change. AAP was the principal challenger, arguing for a total change. AAP trounced every other party, including the BJP, and won 92 out of 117 seats. In Uttar Pradesh, the Congress pitched its flag in 400 constituencies (a first in many years), fielded women in 40 per cent of the constituencies (a first for any party in any election) and coined a slogan that went viral and attracted thousands of women, mostly the young: ladki hoon, lad sakti hoon. It won two seats and 2.68 per cent of the votes. In Goa, the Congress denied re-admission or tickets to defectors, fielded young, educated, clean, no-baggage candidates, presented a comprehensive manifesto that addressed all the issues, campaigned energetically and topped the social media engagements. The only thing it did not do was to pay money for votes. All but two of the young, educated, clean, no-baggage candidates lost. The allegedly most corrupt ministers of the outgoing government and at least eight known defectors were re-elected. The two new entrants, AAP and TMC, took 6.77 per cent and 5.21 per cent of the vote and 2 and 0 seats respectively, and cooked the Congress goose.

Lost the Plot

Reading the results, it seems to me that the No-changers had it easy, they had to press one button, and they did so single-mindedly in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Manipur and Goa. The Pro-changers were spoilt for choice and pressed different buttons! It also seems to me that the people are against drug trafficking, blasphemy and unkept promises on jobs (as in Punjab); that people are content to be poor, to see their children go out of the state in search of jobs (one in sixteen of the population migrates out of the state), and to suffer miserable educational and healthcare facilities (as in UP); and that people who were genuinely concerned about issues like education, employment, economy, environment and the ethos of the state thought they had voted for change but are now horrified to find that they have the same government and no change at all (as in Goa).

I believe that in all the five states, even as the core Hindutva vote base is growing, the majority of voters desired a change of government. The majority may have voted for change but they did not vote with a single mind or for a single party, except in Punjab. In Goa, certainly, the Pro-changers divided their votes among three-four parties and lost the plot. I hope that this essay does not read like a lament about democracy.



Read in source website

Age-appropriateness is actually about bowing to everybody’s expectation but your own. The jersey top has to cover the hips, the kurtas must be comfort-fit, the sari cannot be a bright red, the make-up must be minimal, and the hair better not dyed anymore. Perhaps the right word should be age-attractiveness.

“Turning 70. Drinks and sinful, slurpy food. Claridge’s,” read the save-the-date from a friend, whom I had never known to be effervescent or indulgent. All her life, her diminutive frame bore the weight of her PR firm and the rigour of discipline. She was only generous with her smile. So, this was rather uncharacteristic. “Well, no more worries. Lived for responsibilities, time to live for myself and celebrate my birthday the way it is meant to be for the very first time. Dress colourful,” she chirped when I called her.

I was happy for her. Happier that she had prioritised herself. Happiest that she didn’t care how she was judged, an old woman about to lose her mind. She wasn’t an aberration.

Two days later, amid an end-of-season sale at a hip Delhi store, two 60-plus women were scanning the beachwear section, planning for a holiday in Thailand now that the pandemic was in pause mode. Friends ever since they bought their first swimsuits and after many losses in their lives, they had vowed to hold each other up, white hair and troubling gout be damned. They would wade into the waters.

And just when I was somewhat awed by their exceptionalism, came a third one, this time my 75-year-old aunt. Partly immobile after a fall and with a chronic vision problem, she sold her home and booked her place in a retirement community, simply because inmates there went on an excursion every weekend. “I live alone, so I am responsible enough to look out for myself, even on a wheelchair,” she told me. Her older brother, my dad, would never have that confidence. I doubted if I would.

Is a grey revolution brewing in India, where women past their retirement age are proving that they certainly aren’t past their expiry date? That they are beyond illnesses, vanities, fear, anxieties, expectations and the tyranny of agelessness? That they can squeal like a teen because joyfulness is everybody’s right? Besides they have saved well and budgeted smart to splurge and live their dream life, on their terms, proving that gendered ageism is a myth, a fog of women’s own insecurities, a trap of their own making. They have realised that society may love victimhood but love you equally if you dared to be Thelma or Louise.

Age-appropriateness is actually about bowing to everybody’s expectation but your own. The jersey top has to cover the hips, the kurtas must be comfort-fit, the sari cannot be a bright red, the make-up must be minimal, and the hair better not dyed anymore. Perhaps the right word should be age-attractiveness.

Some studies say that women above 65 are the most ambitious because they are unencumbered and totally at ease with embracing themselves as they are, irrespective of success or failure, oblivious to looks or the lack of it. Most importantly, the lens of judgment moves away from them because they are considered over the hill. Only there is a greener valley on the other side, where red lipsticks and leather boots can co-exist with the maturity of fine wine, the wisdom of well-casked years.

This completeness then is a new constituency of power, one that marketers are not immune to. That’s why Gucci got 82-year-old Jane Fonda, the fitness icon of all time, to model for its elegant suit and eco-friendly bag. Pop goddess Cher features in M.A.C. Cosmetics’ latest campaign while singer-poet Patti Smith, 74, is the brand ambassador for a travel bag company, Rimowa, alongside the much younger Rihanna. The brand even uses her new poem, ‘Never still’ as its punchline, asking people “to reclaim motion”.

One could argue that they have always had a brand value in public life, their achievements glossing over their every wart and furrow. But nobody knew 65-year-old coffee shop owner Ong Bee Yan, whom a young Singapore designer discovered for his brand campaign. Since then, a reclusive woman, who feared dementia, has been the confident, sharp and elegant face of many ads. “Old dogs can learn new tricks,” she said. There is life in the old dog yet.



Read in source website

The RSS featured Jinnah among 200 “eminent persons” from Gujarat, at a recent exhibition organised as part of its Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha. The caption accompanying the photograph had said, “A barrister who was initially a staunch patriot, later the creator of India’s Partition on basis of religion.”

Some 95 km from Porbandar, where Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born, is Moti Paneli, the village in Rajkot district that was home to Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s family — both places in the Kathiawad region of Gujarat. A two-storey house that is claimed to be 108 years old stands on a narrow concrete street of this village in the Upleta tehsil and is known as the house of Jinnahbhai Poonjabhai, a trader who moved to Karachi for better business prospects. Jinnahbhai was the father of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan and its first Governor General.

The RSS featured Jinnah among 200 “eminent persons” from Gujarat, at a recent exhibition organised as part of its Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha. The caption accompanying the photograph had said, “A barrister who was initially a staunch patriot, later the creator of India’s Partition on basis of religion.”

The photograph was removed following a report in The Indian Express on the exhibition.

In Gujarat, Jinnah’s Gujarati roots are only a footnote, although the story of his family is typically that of many Kathiawadi business families, who looked up to Karachi in pre-Partition India, with some settling in Bombay, both ports, for ease of trade. In Karachi, Jinnabhai traded in all kinds of goods, including cotton, wool, hides, and oil-seeds. Stanley Wolpert writes in Jinnah of Pakistan, a biography of the leader, “Business was so good, in fact with profits soaring so high, that he became a banker and money-lender… despite it being forbidden in Islam.”

The story goes that Poonjabhai Thakkar, Jinnahbhai’s father and Jinnah’s grandfather, who belonged to the mercantile Lohana community of Gujarat, was in the fish trading business, because of which he was ostracised by his community and decided to convert to Islam. Thus, Jinnah was born in a Shi’ite Muslim family — the followers of Aga Khan, called ‘Khojas’ in Gujarat, who keep Hindu-sounding names.

Jinnah was the first of seven children born to Jinnahbhai and Mithibai. Although Pakistan celebrates December 25, 1876, as Jinnah’s birthday, the Sind Madressa-tul- Islam of Karachi, the first such school that Jinnah attended, records October 20, 1875 as the birth date of “Mahomedali Jinnahbhai”, writes Wolpert.

Just before Jinnah would leave for London for a business apprenticeship in 1893, Mithibai got Mamad — as Jinnah was called at home — married to 14-year old Emibai, who was also a Khoja from Moti Paneli. “The matchmakers and parents decided everything for Jinnah and his bride, even as young Gandhi’s parents had done a few years before, the way countless other teenage Indian couples were married in the nineteenth century,” writes Wolpert.

Jinnah, then 16, left for London, leaving Emibai behind. He never saw her again as she died long before his return. In 1918, after returning to Bombay to practise in the high court, Jinnah married Ruttie, an 18-year-old Parsi girl who converted to Islam three days before their marriage.

Like most Gujaratis, Jinnahbhai was angry with his son’s decision to “abandon his business career” and study law. Jinnahbhai himself moved to Ratnagiri in 1904, after his business went down, as per Wolpert’s account.

He left behind the house at Azad Chowk in Tower Sheri, Moti Paneli. It is now the house of Popatbhai Becharbhai Pokiya. “Nothing has changed in that building where the Jinnahbhai lived, except some renovations here and there,” says Moti Paneli’s former sarpanch Mansukhbhai Bhalodiya, 66. He adds how the village that had 100 Khoja families back then, now has only five to six.

The house, as described by deputy sarpanch Jatin Bhalodiya, is a typical Gujarati-style village home with “two rooms on the ground floor, two rooms on the first floor and two kitchens”. The house has a courtyard like old houses.

There are at least two accounts of Jinnah having visited Ahmedabad, once in October 1916 to preside over the Bombay Provincial Conference where he had proposed transforming provincial governments like Bombay to elected autonomous administrations where, “Muslims and Hindus, wherever they are in a minority”, have “proper, adequate and effective representation” (Wolpert).

The other is recorded in former Union minister and the late BJP leader Jaswant Singh’s book Jinnah: India-Partition Independence. Jaswant Singh writes that Jinnah attended the Ahmedabad Session of the Congress in 1921 under the “de facto leadership of Gandhi”, which would be his last. “He was perhaps the only individual to be seen in foreign clothes, complete with collar, tie, and was found not spinning the charkha,” writes Singh.

Singh’s book, launched in August 2009, was banned in the state by Narendra Modi, then chief minister of Gujarat. The Gujarat government had alleged that the book defamed the image of the country’s first home minister Vallabhbhai Patel by “questioning his patriotic spirit”.

Professor Hari Desai, who specialises in modern Indian socio-political history and teaches at the Ahmedabad-based Chimanbhai Patel Institute, says Jinnah was considered an “anti-hero” in Gujarat. “School textbooks only mention him as someone who demanded Pakistan, but never say who Jinnah really was.”

According to Mansukhbhai, “there were only two famous people from our village — Jinnah and Harshad Mehta (the stockbroker investigated for the securities scam)”.



Read in source website

Conventional wisdom was that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath would be under pressure if he won Uttar Pradesh narrowly; if it was a grand victory, he was here to stay and emerge as a potential successor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But nothing is ever certain in politics. The UP victory was as much Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s as Yogi’s.

Conventional wisdom was that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath would be under pressure if he won Uttar Pradesh narrowly; if it was a grand victory, he was here to stay and emerge as a potential successor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But nothing is ever certain in politics. The UP victory was as much Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s as Yogi’s. During the last days of the campaign, a stream of VIP visitors descended at the Taj Hotel compound, where Shah was staying.

The callers included BJP president J P Nadda, Union minister Giriraj Singh, state minister Shrikant Sharma, state organisational chief Sunil Bansal, besides half a dozen Lok Sabha MPs from the state. Even Manoj Sinha took time off from his gubernatorial duties in Jammu and Kashmir to confer with Shah.

Full-timer needed

The disenchantment with Rahul Gandhi has grown exponentially after the Assembly results. The Congress succeeded in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in states like Punjab and Uttarakhand. Many Congresspersons grumble privately that while the BJP is led by a man who is on the job 24 x7, Rahul is periodically missing. For instance, Rahul contracted Covid in April 2021 and was out of action for over a month. This was the crucial period when Gandhi should have been chalking out strategy for potentially winnable states like Punjab, Uttarakhand and Goa. The problem is that no one in his party is willing to take decisions without the de facto president’s approval. Many of Rahul’s appointees are inexperienced and lack clout or standing. His main aides K C Venugopal and Randeep Surjewala are fairly anonymous. And some of those in charge in the states are complete unknowns such as Devendra Yadav for Uttarakhand, and Harish Chaudhary for Punjab. To put Harish Rawat in charge of Punjab ahead of the Uttarakhand polls was suicidal.

Missing the mood

Some in the media were misled in the last lap of the UP campaign by the intensity of the feelings voiced by Samajwadi Party Akhilesh Yadav’s supporters. A senior columnist was swayed by the fact that he was almost trampled in a stampede of overenthusiastic participants at an SP rally. In western UP, a few journalists focused largely on interviewing those who had participated in farmer rallies to sense the electoral wind, ignoring a sizable silent chunk from the BPL (Below Poverty Line) who were more concerned about the free ration allowances distributed by Yogi Adityanath’s government post Covid.

Taken for a ride

Prashant Kishor’s Goa gamble proved a costly adventure for the Trinamool Congress, which drew a blank in the polls. For former CM Churchill Alemao, who considered Benaulim his family’s fiefdom, aligning with the TMC proved a liability as the five-time MLA lost to AAP. Another political heavyweight, Luizinho Faleiro, was rewarded with a Rajya Sabha seat last year for joining the TMC, but the TMC failed to win from his former constituency of Navelim. The TMC funded the campaign of its ally, the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, which pledged the support of its two MLAs to the BJP government on counting day.

PM’s snub

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was upset with the Ministry of External Affairs’s response in the days leading up to the Russian offensive against Ukraine. He felt the ministry did not brief the government adequately and its advisories to Indians living in Ukraine were vague. At the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) meeting, it was noteworthy that Minister for Petroleum Hardeep Puri and Minister for Commerce Piyush Goyal were invited to attend, though both are not members of the CCS. A further snub to the MEA was that the Prime Minister dispatched four senior ministers unconnected with foreign affairs, Hardeep Singh Puri, Jyotiraditya Scindia, V K Singh and Kiren Rijiju, to get Indian students out of Ukraine. The three Ministers of State in the MEA stayed back in India. (During Modi’s first term, then MEA Minister of State V K Singh was in charge of evacuations of Indian nationals in Yemen and South Sudan.) Puri, who is from the IFS cadre, was proactive in providing inputs during the evacuation exercise. The decision to dispatch senior ministers to oversee the programme to get Indians back from Ukraine may have kept MEA officials on their toes and may have been good for optics and media coverage. It also meant that the MEA staff was sometimes diverted from its main purpose while making arrangements for VIPs.



Read in source website

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for skill development and entrepreneurship, and electronics and IT, sees the policy space on privacy as lying somewhere between no protection and an absolutist position. These could signal some policy options for the sector.

The policy environment around startups is undergoing furious change, as Indian unicorns mushroomed during the economy's digital tilt during the pandemic. New vistas will open up when taller technology stacks are built on 5G cellular services, public digital platforms, semiconductor designing and electronics manufacturing. India is equipping itself with a data-protection framework sensitive to nurturing entrepreneurship and is redrawing rules to push efficiencies in ecommerce. Universities are being reimagined to create the talent for an explosion of startup activity: big campuses will make way for virtual classrooms. Digital delivery of public services is creating the opportunity, and investor appetite is imposing its discipline for startups to mature into robust companies.

Winners of this year's ET Startup Awards have drawn their lessons from the ecosystem: building a business to scale on public money is a continuing effort; innovation is the only barrier to entry; adapting to the external environment is vital; money will chase innovation and effort; and technology can solve big problems and is a social enabler. Startups also have their questions about the environment in which they operate. Principally, it is about whether the marketplace for ideas is efficient in terms of funding and whether regulation casts an inordinate burden on fledgling companies.

Some suggestions aired at the awards ceremony merit consideration. Industry and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has flagged self-regulation of ecommerce and having bigger startups helping smaller ones with funding. Ashwini Vaishnaw, minister of railways, communications, electronics and IT, sees GoI's technology initiatives providing the scope for India to produce five times as many unicorns as it has today. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for skill development and entrepreneurship, and electronics and IT, sees the policy space on privacy as lying somewhere between no protection and an absolutist position. These could signal some policy options for the sector.

<

Read in source website

Healthcare, as the pandemic made doubly clear, has been a neglected sector. India had to mend and build its fragile system on the run. Personnel is the most critical part of this system

GoI's decision to stay on course with administering an examination - the National Exit Test (NExT) - for obtaining a licence to practise medicine is welcome. Tens of thousands go to Russia, China, Ukraine (90% of the 20,000-odd Indian students in this war-wracked country were studying medicine), Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines, etc, every year to pursue a degree in medicine. Within India, a sizeable number receive their medical education in private and public institutions. Ensuring that all medical graduates meet a minimum threshold of competence before being allowed to practise is essential to ensure a robust healthcare system.

The idea of a licence to practise for all medical graduates, irrespective of where they received their training, is a robust and fair way to ensure threshold quality. Requiring even domestically trained medical students to take the exam creates a level playing field. The first examination will be held in 2023. The decision to have a trial run in 2022 makes eminent sense, as it will help iron out any hitches that could arise ahead of the rollout in 2023. This system will also help identify institutions that are below par and be an invaluable tool for the medical education commission to suggest measures and put out advisories for students. It could well spark a race to improve quality of education.

Healthcare, as the pandemic made doubly clear, has been a neglected sector. India had to mend and build its fragile system on the run. Personnel is the most critical part of this system. Ensuring this system is staffed with enough hands possessing at least a basic level of competence and training is the first step towards sprucing up India's health infrastructure. The licence system could ensure that in a fair, competent fashion.

<

Read in source website

In his remarks to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly Emergency Special Session on Ukraine on February 28, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres stated, “The attack on Ukraine challenges international law and the multilateral system rooted in the UN Charter”. He also noted, “We face what could easily become Europe’s worst humanitarian and refugee crisis in decades, with the numbers of refugees and internally displaced multiplying by the minute.”

Besides the loss of innocent lives and the destruction of property, infrastructure and civilian facilities, Russia’s unprovoked military operation inside the sovereign territory of Ukraine is presenting two sets of challenges before the international community: The violation of the fundamental purposes and principles of the UN Charter and of the peremptory norms of general international law; the triggering of a catastrophic humanitarian crisis with an exodus outside Ukraine’s borders and the dispersion of people within the country in an attempt to seek refuge from the brutality of war.

The aggression on Ukraine is not only ravaging the country but also fuelling a regional crisis with disastrous global implications and ripple effects on the international community. Rising prices of oil and gas, with their consequences on the cost of living, or the shortage of grain exports, with their consequences in terms of food insecurity, are just the tip of the iceberg of the shock initiated by the Russian invasion. No matter how far people are from the epicentre of the conflict, its impact will be felt.

The material impact might be coupled with even bigger repercussions caused by the violation of the basic principles of coexistence within the international community. Silence towards the disregard of some fundamental values enshrined in the UN Charter — including refraining from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of any State — might be detrimental to peaceful relations wherever there are unresolved border disputes. This was also the concern 141 countries — including all the European Union (EU) member states — shared when they voted in favour of the Resolution on the Aggression of Ukraine.

As far as the humanitarian crisis is concerned, the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) has noted how, in just two weeks, the threshold of two million refugees fleeing Ukraine has already been crossed.

To escape violence and in search of hope and safety, those people chose the neighbours on Ukraine’s western borders, including four EU countries, whose remarkable efforts in this lifesaving endeavour are commendable.

The duty of the international community lies in assisting not only the ones who have left, but also the ones who remain and live in privation under the threat of violence. To those people, many countries are directing their humanitarian efforts. Italy is doing its part by supplying relief and housing goods for the Ukrainian population; as is India by sending medical and relief material to the people affected by the crisis.

Humanitarian operations are aimed at alleviating some of the distress, but will not stop the incalculable human suffering in Ukraine. To this end, a massive diplomatic effort will be required.

In a conversation on the developments in Ukraine that Italian foreign minister Luigi Di Maio recently had with India’s external affairs minister S Jaishankar, both reaffirmed the importance of an early ceasefire and the return to dialogue and diplomacy.

The gist of the discourse is that at this stage, all members of the international community who have a stake in global peace and stability need to concentrate their efforts on promoting greater international coordination aimed at an immediate ceasefire, at a mediated and sustainable solution through diplomacy, and respect for the basic tenets of international peace and security.

Vincenzo De Luca is ambassador of Italy to IndiaThe views expressed are personal



Read in source website

Three contemporary developments have challenged India’s engagement with the world and its security concerns in the past 24 months. The first was the decision by China’s Xi Jinping to pick a line from a map in imagined history and send 100,000 troops and more to alter the current political equation in the Himalayas. This was a whimsical and perverse exertion of power that resulted in a bloody clash and a still continuing face-off between Indian and Chinese troops. Xi’s actions then were no different from Vladimir Putin’s in recent days, both yearning for the expanse of empires past or even mythical. The global reaction, though ostensibly sympathetic to India, was timid when compared to the current aggressive response to a similar Russian effort to change the politics of Europe.

Continuing economic engagement with China and appeasement of the Dragon to the detriment of its partners and allies defined the western world’s response. The differential between geopolitics in Europe and geopolitics in Asia has been underscored again in stark terms. The frenzied media coverage and careless commentary continue to reinforce how values and ethics vary when ethnicity and geography change. This must affect the assessments of the West’s partners in the East.

Next, in August 2021, the world’s mightiest superpower, the United States (US), finalised an unethical and tragic arrangement with a band of terrorists, and deserted Afghanistan overnight. Women rights, individual freedoms and the “values” that were propagated while waging the so-called liberal war against terror, were all discarded in favour of what was expedient. The professors of democracy and the radical Taliban found common cause and sent Afghanistan back to the 1990s. For India, terrorists armed with American weaponry were no longer just a threat scenario but a reality at its door — one it would have to handle by itself.

And now, Putin has decided to go one up on Joe Biden and take Europe back to the early 20th century. Russian troops invaded a sovereign country to enforce a political writ driven solely by the desire to preserve Russia’s influence over geographies that increasingly disagree with the politics and propositions of the Kremlin. While Russia’s fears of the purpose and method of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)’s expansion must not be discounted, use of force and violation of a country’s sovereignty cannot be acceptable as an expression of disagreement.

The invasion of Ukraine has put India in an unenviable position of choosing between what is right and what it believes is right for itself. India’s tough words on Russian action in its statement at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), even as it abstained from voting, demonstrated this. Yet this is insufficient for many in the liberal West who seek India to be part of the normative liberal order, as well as of a performative chorus against Russia.

What is more striking than India’s predictable vote is the mood on the street and views of the commentariat. It seems that the memories of the feeble support on China and the shenanigans in Afghanistan are still fresh.

The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 had triggered loud political debates and voices against India’s then position on American intervention. This time, the convergence across the normally sharp political divide is palpable and must be a moment for reflection for many.

Several questions confront New Delhi. First, does strategic autonomy equal neutrality, or is it the freedom to choose what is best for the country at any given time? Can we disregard growing strategic expectations from partners? What are the dependencies that are being created by our economic and security choices? Which of them are inimical to our interests? And, how can we integrate this aspect as we make choices in a multi-layered world?

Finally, there is a question for the trans-Atlantic order. Its tough line on Russia’s military adventurism, gaming of economic relations, and cyber and information operations have been compelling. Will it hold this line when it comes to China’s actions? Or will the happenings in Asia continue to be appraised through a “dollar”- driven values framework?

But the single most important learning through the pandemic years and the three geopolitical developments that have created turbulence for India is the burial of the post-war assumptions of the century past that undergirded our modern societies and indeed the global project that was born around the same time as India’s Independence.

Between China, the US and now Russia, we have witnessed the weaponisation of everything. Innocuous supply chain components for electronics, minor supplements for medicines, components for vaccine packaging, energy and gas grids, SWIFT system and currency and minerals and sundry materials have all been used for political coercion, waging war, or for undermining others’ interests.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for aatmanirbharta (self-reliance) has acquired a new salience and ironically, achieving it requires astute global interlinkages and perhaps even more dense global networks for a country that houses a sixth of humanity. Trusted connectivity, diversified sources of materials and components and resilient financial and trading arrangements are no longer buzzwords but a strategic imperative requiring all of India’s consensus, including within its business community, lawmakers and all stakeholders.

Samir Saran is president, Observer Research Foundation The views expressed are personal



Read in source website

The latest round of the India-China military dialogue last week failed to yield any breakthrough, though commanders from both sides agreed to carry on dialogue through military and diplomatic channels to reach a mutually acceptable resolution of outstanding problems at friction points on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Ladakh sector. The 15th round of corps commander-level talks came on the back of positive signals from both nations that had said that they were hopeful of progress and that the conversation was encouraging. But it also came at a moment of unprecedented instability in the global order due to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Since the two sides clashed in the Galwan Valley two years ago — an event which underlined China’s aggressive and willful violation of border agreements — three rounds of disengagement have been effected at Galwan, Pangong Tso and Gogra. But disengagement in Hot Springs is a sticking point, as are the Chinese army’s forward positions in Depsang. With the western world and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) focused on the crisis in Europe and checking Russia’s revanchist ambitions, Beijing appears to be quickly sliding down the scale of priority in European capitals and Washington DC. Even mechanisms used by India to counteract China’s expansionism in the Indo-Pacific region, such as Quad, may find their energies drawn towards the conflict in Ukraine at a time when the country’s traditionally warm ties with Russia will likely come under pressure as Beijing and a sanctions-hit Moscow grow closer.

With every passing week more evidence is emerging that China is feverishly building its border infrastructure, roads, bridges, airports and missile positions, in a possible attempt to enforce its unilaterally defined claim line of 1959 along LAC. With satellite imagery earlier this year of a new bridge being built on the Chinese side to link both banks of the strategic Pangong Lake, it appears that China’s intransigence in the border talks might be part of its strategy to hold on to whatever gains it made in its unlawful attempts to change the status quo at LAC. For India, therefore, the drive to modernise and bolster infrastructure in strategic areas must be accompanied by deft geopolitical moves that ensure that India’s claim on its territory is not threatened by a possible realignment in the global order. In an unstable world, Beijing will attempt to gain the upper hand. New Delhi must be alert.



Read in source website

A time-tested cycle that has yielded little result repeated itself on Sunday with the Congress gathering for a meeting to “introspect” on its dismal showing in the five-state elections. The four-and-a-half hour meeting ended predictably: No resignations from the Congress leadership, entrusting the Congress president to effect organisational changes, and organising a ‘chintan shivir’ to brainstorm for ideas ahead of state polls later this year.

The Congress faces an existential crisis. It’s haemorrhaging leaders who appear to do well once they leave the party, it appears unable to exploit anti-incumbency against other parties but is vulnerable to the phenomenon itself, and it has a dearth of grassroots leadership and regional satraps who can win elections. It only rules two states on its own — Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh — and with both going to the polls in late 2023, there is a real danger that the party may head into the 2024 general election without a single chief minister.

But even as the party hurtles from crisis to crisis, its response appears to not reflect the trouble it is in. The question of leadership appears to bounce between members of the same family, internal squabbles continue and panels formed to look into drubbings offer effete solutions. A report on the party’s poor showing in the 2021 state elections is gathering dust. For a democracy to remain healthy, a robust Opposition is needed. All state polls between now and May 2024 will feature the Congress as the primary challenger to the Bharatiya Janata Party. The organisational changes announced on Sunday will need to be decisive. Introspection can no longer cut it. For the Congress, the time to act is running out.



Read in source website

Two years since Covid-19 was declared a pandemic -on March 11, 2020 - finally, for India, there seems to be some light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. The daily new Covid-19 cases in the country have come down to around 4,000 to 5,000, the lowest in 22 months since May 2020. This has revived some of the discourses -- (a) whether the third wave of Covid-19 pandemic is over in India? (b) Has Covid-19 become endemic in the country? (c) Will there be another wave? and (d) Does everyone need a Covid-19 vaccine booster dose? These are some of the many questions that people have in the mind.

To start with -- in a pandemic or epidemic -- when the number of daily new cases comes down and stabilises at low levels, for at least two weeks, it is considered an end of the wave in that specific setting. If on a graph, these new cases are plotted on y-axis and the time on x-axis, a curve with a flattened pattern would appear towards the end. Moreover, at present, the daily new Covid-19 cases in India are lower than the cases before the third wave in the country. In this backdrop, it is logical to conclude that the Covid-19 third wave is over. However, a wave getting over does not mean that SARS CoV2 has gone. In fact, the newer pathogens including viruses, once detected, stays with humanity for long, possibly forever. This seems to be the most probable scenario with SARS CoV2 as well. It clearly is time for us to prepare to live with SARS CoV2.

That brings another question: Has Covid-19 become endemic in India? To start with, we need to understand that Covid-19 becoming endemic is not a binary that today it is a pandemic and tomorrow it is endemic. Also, “endemic” does not mean the “end” of the virus transmission. So, when do we call a disease “endemic”? An epidemic or pandemic starts with a pathogen (in this case a virus) but ends with a “socio-political consensus”. Therefore, when Covid-19 would be considered endemic in any setting or country is going to be determined by every country at different points of time. There is going to be some risk associated with SARS CoV2, which would be greater than pre-Covid period. Therefore, a decision on endemicity would be influenced by societal consensus and political leadership based upon how much risk any society or community is willing to accept, in the return to normalcy, in other spheres of life? Sweden, Denmark and Britain, without explicitly declaring Covid-19 as endemic, removed nearly all Covid-19 related restrictions. When these countries removed restrictions, the number of daily new Covid-19 cases were far higher than even the peak of the earlier waves in those settings.

The third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in India can be considered over. But in the last week of February 2022, a pre-print mathematical modelling study by a group of researchers at a reputed educational institution in India claimed that the fourth wave in India would start in June 2022. Since then, the study has been criticised for lack of rigour and methodological flaws, including by not taking relevant epidemiological aspects in the consideration, the findings are on a weak scientific footing and as good as “an intelligent guess”. Considering high population level immunity after either natural infection in the second and third wave and nearly 95 per cent of the adult population receiving at least one shot of Covid-19 vaccines, there is a situation of hybrid immunity in the country. Though immunity and protection decline over a period, two shots of the vaccines continue to provide protection from severe disease and hospitalisation for long. In this backdrop, the possibility of a fresh large-scale wave in India is very low.  This is also to argue that there is no urgency to get a booster for a healthy adult population.

What would endemicity or “living with SARS CoV2” mean? It would mean that for most people adherence to Covid appropriate behaviour of face masks and physical distancing - in public places - would become a voluntary decision. However, it would be pragmatic to remove the restrictions in a graded manner. First, the restrictions may be removed for the outdoor public spaces, then for closed spaces and before finally being removed for everyone. However, even when Covid-19 becomes endemic, it would be advisable for high-risk individuals - adults with co-morbidities or the 60-plus population, to voluntarily adhere to masks and distancing as deemed appropriate. It is very likely that for many months to come, some people will voluntarily wear masks in public places. The Covid-19 pandemic has underscored the relevance of staying healthy. Therefore, living with SARS CoV2 essentially would mean every individual needs to do their bit of adopting a healthier lifestyle, which would minimise their risk.

Living with Covid-19 would not mean no policy intervention would be needed. In fact, some areas would require sustained and priority policy attention. As an example, among all age groups, school-age children are at lowest risk of severe disease. Therefore, proactive interventions will be needed to bring everything for them to normalcy, urgently. The policy interventions needed to reopen schools with 100 per cent attendance in physical classes. The end of a wave or entering into the endemic stage also means that the face mask mandates for school-age children should be done away. Every effort by all state governments would have to be made to ensure continuity of school, which should not be disrupted by a temporary rise in cases. It is also the time to focus upon the physical and mental health of children through strengthened school health services.

At a broader level, even now, tackling misinformation (about various aspects of virus and disease) should remain a priority. Science communication with the public should be strengthened and sustained to counter misinformation.  The general health services, both government and private facilities, for post and long Covid conditions need to be expanded and strengthened. The strengthened mental health services should get renewed attention. For both, post Covid and mental health services, tele consultation services should be strengthened.

One thing is certain -- the Covid-19 pandemic will be over. However, SARS CoV2 is likely to stay with humanity for long. All epidemiological and immunological evidence suggests that India is inching towards a Covid-19 endemic stage. It is time we as a society start preparing to live with Covid-19. This requires actions at individual, societal and policy level.



Read in source website