The 13th BRICS summit is set to be held on September 9 in digital format under India’s chairmanship. This plurilateral grouping comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa is chaired by turn. India held the chair in 2012 and 2016 too. The preparatory meeting of Foreign Ministers in June and dialogue at the BRICS Academic Forum in early August offered an important opportunity to present an objective assessment of the grouping’s record amid differing views of believers and sceptics. The importance of BRICS is self-evident: it represents 42% of the world’s population, 30% of the land area, 24% of global GDP and 16% of international trade.

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, noting that BRICS was 15 years old, recently portrayed it as a young adult, equipped with “thoughts shaped and a worldview concretised, and with a growing sense of responsibilities.” Others tend to view it as caught up in angst and confusion typical of a teenager.

Still, member states have been carrying BRICS forward in an era of complex geopolitics. They have bravely continued holding dozens of meetings and summits, even as China’s aggression in eastern Ladakh last year brought India-China relations to their lowest point in several decades. There is also the reality of the strained relations of China and Russia with the West, and of serious internal challenges preoccupying both Brazil and South Africa. On the other hand, a potential bond emerged due to the battle against COVID- 19. In this backdrop, does BRICS truly matter?

Four priorities

Launched by a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Brazil, Russia, India and China in 2006 and riding on the political synergy created by regular summits since 2009, BRIC turned itself into BRICS in 2010, with the entry of South Africa. The grouping has gone through a reasonably productive journey. It strove to serve as a bridge between the Global North and Global South. It developed a common perspective on a wide range of global and regional issues; established the New Development Bank; created a financial stability net in the form of Contingency Reserve Arrangement; and is on the verge of setting up a Vaccine Research and Development Virtual Center.

What are its immediate goals now? As the current chair, India has outlined four priorities. The first is to pursue reform of multilateral institutions ranging from the United Nations, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to the World Trade Organization and now even the World Health Organization. This is not a new goal. BRICS has had very little success so far, although strengthening multilateralism serves as a strong bond as well as a beacon. Reform needs global consensus which is hardly feasible in the current climate of strategic contestation between the U.S. and China and the devastation caused by COVID-19 to health, lives and livelihoods. Nevertheless, Indian officials rightly remind us that BRICS emerged from the desire to challenge dominance (by the U.S.) in the early years of the century, and it remains committed to the goal of counter-dominance (by China) now. Mr. Jaishankar observed that the “counter-dominance instinct and principled commitment to multipolarity in all forms” is “written into the DNA of BRICS.”

The second is the resolve to combat terrorism. Terrorism is an international phenomenon affecting Europe, Africa, Asia and other parts of the world. Tragic developments concerning Afghanistan have helped to focus attention sharply on this overarching theme, stressing the need to bridge the gap between rhetoric and action. China, for example, feels little hesitation in supporting clear-cut denunciations of terrorist groups, even as its backing of Pakistan, which is heavily enmeshed with a host of international terrorist groups, remains steadfast.

In this context, BRICS is attempting to pragmatically shape its counter-terrorism strategy by crafting the BRICS Counter Terrorism Action Plan containing specific measures to fight radicalisation, terrorist financing and misuse of the Internet by terrorist groups. This plan is expected to be a key deliverable at the forthcoming summit and may hopefully bring some change.

Promoting technological and digital solutions for the Sustainable Development Goals and expanding people-to-people cooperation are the other two BRICS priorities. Digital tools have helped a world adversely hit by the pandemic, and India has been in the forefront of using new technological tools to improve governance. But enhancing people-to- people cooperation will have to wait for international travel to revive. Interactions through digital means are a poor substitute.

Among other concerns, BRICS has been busy deepening trade and investment ties among its member states. The difficulty stems from China’s centrality and dominance of intra-BRICS trade flows. How to create a better internal balance remains a challenge, reinforced by the urgent need for diversification and strengthening of regional value chains, all exposed during the pandemic. Policymakers have been encouraging an increase in intra-BRICS cooperation in diverse areas like agriculture, disaster resilience, digital health, traditional medicine and customs cooperation.

Takeaways

The idea of BRICS – a common pursuit of shared interests by the five emerging economies from four continents – is fundamentally sound and relevant. The governments have invested huge political capital in pushing the BRICS experiment forward, and its institutionalisation has created its own momentum.

The five-power combine has succeeded, albeit up to a point. But it now confronts multiple challenges: China’s economic rise has created a serious imbalance within BRICS; Beijing’s aggressive policy, especially against India, puts BRICS solidarity under exceptional strain; and BRICS countries have not done enough to assist the Global South to win their optimal support for their agenda. It is necessary for leaders, officials and academics of this grouping to undertake serious soul-searching and find a way out of the present predicament.

A parting thought: BRICS negotiators need to master the art of brevity and tight drafting. When they do so, they will realise that unduly lengthy communiqués are an index to the grouping’s weakness, not strength.

Rajiv Bhatia is Distinguished Fellow, Gateway House and a former High Commissioner to South Africa

The human body, like a nation, is composed of structures and processes. A bony skeleton holds it together. Processes such as breathing, blood circulation and the formation of new cells give the body life. When vital processes become weak, the body becomes unhealthy even if the frame is strong. And when they cease, overpowered by infection, life ceases, and the bones remain to be buried.

Elements of a democracy

A democratic nation, or any nation, is also composed of structures — its constitution and laws. What distinguishes democratic nations from authoritarian ones is the liveliness of citizens’ participation in the governance of their nation. In healthy democracies, citizens participate effectively in the shaping of the policies and laws by which they are governed. Democratic constitutions provide elected assemblies for citizens’ representatives to shape new policies and pass laws.

Open-minded deliberation in these forums is necessary to meet the requirements of democracy. It is also essential for finding good solutions for systemic problems which must be considered from many perspectives. When these forums become chambers for close-minded partisan politics, they cannot find solutions to the complex, systemic problems that all nations must address in the 21st century: climate change, historical inequities, increasing economic inequalities, and violence brewing with discontents within. The U.S. houses of Congress seem ham-strung by party politics; debates in the Indian Parliament have degenerated into floor battles with missiles; and, citizens of many European democracies are dismayed by the performance of their elected institutions.

Constitutions, elections, and assemblies are not all that a democracy needs to function. Though this is what the simplistic U.S. vision of converting nations to democracies — on the heels of its armed interventions in many nations — seems to suggest. Democracies have life from what happens outside the elected chambers and what happens between elections. People who belong to different political factions, practise different religions, and have different histories within the history of their nation, must listen to each other, and learn to live democratically together every day of their lives. Therefore, what healthy democracies need most of all are processes of democratic deliberations among citizens themselves.

Widening fissures

Sadly, the cracks in the Indian nation dividing ‘people like us’ from ‘people not like us’, are widening in institutions at the top as well as in relationships on the ground. Majoritarian electoral systems of democracy will harden these divisions in India, as they are in the United States. Therefore, stronger processes are urgently required for democratic discourses amongst citizens themselves to bind the national fabric before it frays further.

The media, which used to provide space for diverse perspectives to be heard, is divided along partisan lines. And social media, touted as a saviour of democracy by enabling citizens to freely listen to many points of view, has turned out to be a hardener of divisions. Smart algorithms have created echo chambers of people who like each other, and who do not listen to those in other chambers, and lob hate bombs at each other across the walls.

Discussions of India’s chronic problems that cry for new solutions have descended into debates about whether the origins of the problems were in the times of the National Democratic Alliance or the times of the United Progressive Alliance. It seems that in any discussion about what ails the country, whether in Parliament, the media, or social gatherings, one must be seen to either support the political dispensation in power, or its opposition. There is little room for thoughtful, non-partisan deliberations among citizens.

Taking a new step

It is time for the next step in the evolution of democratic institutions. Kalypso Nicolaidis of the School of Transnational Governance, European University Institute, says, “Consent of the governed is about more than periodic elections or referenda. The process of deepening the reach of democracy remains the same as it has been for the last 200 years: a struggle to expand the franchise. This time around, it is a franchise that does not necessarily express itself through the right to vote in periodic elections, but rather through widespread inclusion in the political process in all its forms.” A civil society movement, Citizens for Europe, has proposed a solution: a European Citizens’ Assembly — a permanent transnational forum for citizens’ participation and deliberation.

Words of caution though. Citizens for Europe explains the drawbacks of purely online methods, which civil society groups in Europe have tried,viz., “the risk of accentuating ideological cleavages and excluding groups affected by the digital divide”. Online forums must be supplemented by real meetings. On the other hand, merely putting people together into a room does not create conditions for thoughtful deliberation. Elected assemblies everywhere are cleaved along partisan lines. James Madison, a framer of the U.S. Constitution, had anticipated this. He wrote in Federalist paper No.55, “Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.” It is not just the quality of the people in the room that matters. Citizens’ meetings, online or offline, must be properly designed and professionally facilitated to enable all points-of-view to be listened to for new insights to emerge.

I return to the analogy of the human body. The human body is a complex system composed of many complex organs and processes — the heart, the brain, the liver, digestion, respiration, self-healing, etc. Breathing is a very simple process — it is the first one that a baby learns as soon as it emerges from its mother’s womb. Yet, we forget how to breathe well as we grow up. Yoga teaches us that learning to breathe well can tone up all the complex systems of the body and mind.

The missing dialogues

Human societies are also complex systems, composed of many formal institutions, and many processes of interactions among people. Listening like breathing is a basic process.

We have forgotten how to listen well, especially to “People Not Like Us”. In schools we are taught how to speak well and win elocution contests and debates. There are no lessons in how to listen well, and no prizes for the best listeners. We listen only to “what” others say; we do not listen to understand “why” they believe what they do. Often, we stop listening even while another is speaking, mentally preparing our ripostes to win a debate. Dialogues to understand are not debates to win. They are explorations of complex issues by combining the knowledge of diverse people.

Monocultures of thought can be as sterile as monocultures in Nature. Diversity in the composition of the participants is essential for ensuring that complex issues are fully understood and new insights can emerge. However, diversity of opinions can create cacophonies unless the deliberations are managed well.

The time has come to learn to listen well, not just speak well; and to conduct dialogues, not debates. The assemblies Emperors Ashoka and Akbar conducted centuries ago in India provide some role models. Technologies of democratic deliberation have advanced since the times of the Athenians, Ashoka, and Akbar, as James Fishkin explains inWhen the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation. The soft power of India, the world’s most richly diverse nation perhaps, will increase when it returns from the presently darkening elected authoritarianism to lead in the evolution of institutions for citizens’ participation in democratic governance.

Arun Maira is the author of ‘Listening for Well-Being: Conversations with People Not Like Us’

Nobel laureate (2017) Richard H. Thaler segregates the population into “Econs” and “Humans”. Short for ‘Homo Economicus’, ‘Econs’ seldom defy economic assumptions of rationality and are flawless decision makers — akin to a preprogrammed machine. But they exist in economic literature only figuratively and are conspicuous by their absence in real life. In contrast, a vast majority of people fall under the category of ‘Humans’. They rarely behave rationally and are, thus, credulously susceptible to a wide variety of behavioural biases in their decisions.

Planners and issues

What is true for the vast populace is equally applicable to policy planners. Their education, professional training, varied experiences and grass-roots connect notwithstanding, they remain ‘Humans’ than ‘Econs’. Even when their decisions have far-reaching consequences, they are scarcely immune to the ‘present bias’ and entrust greater weight to the payoffs that are closer to the present time, thus favouring ‘instant ambitions’ over ‘enduring economic gains’. Similarly, they could be amenable to ‘overconfidence’, ‘optimism’ and ‘framing effects’ and get swayed by the way information is presented to them.

Their thought processes may also be hinged on the ‘confirmation bias’ tempting them to search, interpret, and recall information which support or validate their predisposition. Even as they mean no malice, they might be manoeuvred by ‘group reinforcement’ and ‘inter-group opposition’.

Cognitive distortion such as ‘availability heuristic’ may, concurrently impel them to believe that what comes to mind more easily is likely to be a far more accurate reflection of reality. What gives them further confidence is the ‘illusion of control’ leading to overestimating their ability to control events or to take mid-course correction if the designed policy fails to deliver the desired result.

The ‘present bias’

Let us examine these phenomena in the context of handling the economic impact of COVID-19 and policies to revive the economy. The stimulus packages announced so far to mitigate the impact of the novel coronavirus and to revive the economy have included the poorest sections of the society, and the major thrust has been on the supply side. This reflects the penchant for procrastinating the immediate cost activities and preproperating the immediate reward activities. In the process, the middle class has simply been left to fend for itself.

This is juxtaposed with the obvious policy option of directing attention to long-lasting benefits focusing on the larger picture rather than being reactive to instantaneous ambitions. This simply vindicates Richard Thaler’s view that ‘humans’ tend to be myopic and Ted O’Donoghue and Matthew Rabin’s proposition that decisions invariably suffer from the ‘present bias’.

A segment with influence

Many studies, notably, a decade-old Asian Development Bank study covering 72 countries on ‘The Role of the Middle-Class in Economic Development: What Do Cross-Country Data Show?’ (ADB Economics Working Paper Series No. 245, January 2011;https://bit.ly/3t59Eom) established that the middle class fosters innovation. Their “values also encourage the accumulation of human capital (via education) and savings (that can then be used for productive investment in the economy)”. Ubiquitously, “policies that factor in the welfare of the middle-class and nurture their growth may be more effective in [the] long-term”. These findings confirm what Nobel Prize winners (2019) Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo have been arguing: that the middle class has a constructive influence on the economy and society.

Closer home, it may be recalled that a 20-time increase in the middle class during the post-reform period had laid a strong foundation for high economic growth. Even as of now, the middle class constitutes close to a fourth of the population but accounts for a four-fifths of the taxpayers’ base. Censoriously, it accounts for three-fourths of the total consumer spending leading to the demand for consumer durables.

The pandemic’s impact

Going by a Pew Research Center report, that the middle class in the country shrunk by a third or over 32 million following the first wave of the novel coronavirus pandemic, their numbers may have further withered subsequent to the second wave, which was all the more devastating. During the past year or so, rural as well as urban unemployment rates have been high. At 8.13% on August 30, 2021, it is still quite high to impact the middle class adversely. Further, out of the total non-farm jobs losses since January 2021, the middle class comprising salaried employees and entrepreneurs has been as high as 13.7 million. Only in July, 3.2 million salaried people lost their jobs.

Rising petrol and diesel prices, and edible oil and retail inflation hovering at 32.5% and 5.6%, respectively, have been further eroding their disposable income. Explicably, a hike in food prices reduces consumers’ income which could have been spent elsewhere to generate demand and thus boost the economy. The plight of the middle class can be understood by the fact that they are selling their family silver and gold jewellery to pay hospital bills, school fees and shop rent, particularly during the last four months, which may lead to further suppression of demand.

In Thaler’s taxonomy, ‘Econs’ are only imaginary; the populace as a whole, irrespective of their position in the society, are only ‘humans’. So are the middle class. Herbert A Simon, yet another Nobel laureate (1978), in his theory of ‘bounded rationality’, argues that individuals with their limited attention span do not follow complete rationality. The temperament of their brain limits their ability to recognise pertinent stimuli and get vacillated by the excessive information presented by the media, publicity, or propaganda.

Despite their deteriorating condition, the middle class have neither been reactive nor have found a collective voice. Concurrently, they have become quite risk averse, which is evident from the fact that bank deposits have increased by 11.4% in 2020-21, even though interest rates have declined as their inclination to spend has subsided. This further leads to a fall in the demand. The verity is also substantiated by Reserve Bank of India’s consumer confidence index. For July 2021, the index stood at 48.6 points which is just about record low.

A shrinking middle class never augurs well for the economy anywhere in the world. They need to be propped up to bring dynamism in the economy, and thus rapidly revive growth by enthusing, among other things, consumer confidence and positive sentiments.

Furqan Qamar, a Professor in finance at Jamia Millia Islamia, is a former Secretary General of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU) and also a former Vice-Chancellor of the Central University of Himachal Pradesh and the University of Rajasthan. Taufeeque Ahmad Siddiqui is an Assistant Professor in finance at Jamia Millia Islamia. The views expressed are personal

August 30 was a big day for India at the Paralympics. The country won five medals, including two gold, bettering the Rio 2016 contingent’s haul in just a day. Indians with disabilities, like all Indians, are proud of these achievements. This presents an opportune moment to reflect on how we can make the Paralympics truly count for India.

The Paralympics is a unique opportunity to empower the disabled. It offers everyone the chance to watch disabled bodies in action and to find commonality with them in the shared desire for national success. Sustained media attention ensures that athletes with disabilities capture the public imagination in an unprecedented way.

Discourse around the disabled

In India, persons with disabilities find it extraordinarily difficult to live a life of equal productivity and dignity as their able-bodied counterparts. The discourse around their status asDivyang— persons with divine bodies — fuels their alienation. Instead of viewing the disabled as ordinary individuals who require additional support to meet their unique needs, this language places them on a different pedestal and presents them as being endowed with supernatural powers. Rather than engaging with them in meaningful, constructive ways, many people either make a person’s disability their focal point, stripping away their multi- layered identity, or ignore their additional challenges altogether. Stereotypes and unfounded biases about the disabled’s incompetence, inability to make informed choices and asexuality, among others, are still alive and kicking.

It is no surprise, then, that engaging in recreational activities like sports is rarely on the minds of disabled people. Even those disabled persons who wish to undertake such activities face formidable obstacles. Mainstream schools, parks, colleges and swimming pools do not provide a conducive environment for them. Arguments about complications and causing inconvenience to others are commonly made to deny access. As a blind person myself, I remember being turned down by a swimming pool in Delhi when I approached them with a wish to pursue swimming classes. The reason? They had received complaints from female swimmers about unsolicited contact in the pool and felt that having a blind person in the pool could get them into trouble. One doesn’t have to be a Paralympian to enjoy the benefits of sports. Recreational sports can help build identity, confidence and a healthy relationship with one’s own body. This is what many disabled people miss out on.

Disabled people with more ambitious sporting aspirations often enter into exploitative coaching relationships and navigate a complicated and unfriendly sports governance framework. This state of affairs is particularly troubling as Section 30 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, requires appropriate governments and sporting authorities to take measures to improve access to meaningful sporting opportunities for the disabled. These include redesigning infrastructural facilities and providing multisensory essentials and features in all sporting activities to make them more accessible.

For India, the success in these Paralympics will be truly meaningful only if it prompts introspection and reorientation. At the systemic level, this has to cover governance reforms in the Paralympic Committee of India. The Committee is now headed by a medal-winning former Paralympian, Deepa Malik. The Union Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs brought parity to the cash rewards structure for medal-winning Paralympians placing them on equal footing with their able-bodied counterparts at the Olympics. These are steps in the right direction.

An opportunity for everyone

To deliver the value of sport more inclusively, satellite television providers and sports broadcasters must take steps that enable the disabled to watch and participate in sporting activities. Further, pictures of the Paralympics in electronic media and on social media must be accompanied by image descriptions for the visually challenged. At the individual level, everyone can view athletes with disabilities in a holistic sense while also acknowledging their additional challenges and striving to create more opportunities for the disabled people in our lives so they can participate in all walks of life.

It is easy to admire the courage of our para-athletes from afar. It is much harder to use these Games as an opportunity to do our bit to change things, to ensure that we are regularly surrounded by such competent and driven disabled people who are given the additional support they need to thrive. With intent, resolve and action, we can make the Paralympics count for India not just on the medal table but in the everyday.

Rahul Bajaj, a Rhodes Scholar, is a Senior Resident Fellow at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy

Just about 50 km from Meghalaya’s capital Shillong is Umdohbyrthih village. It was once known for its rocky terrains, streams, springs and verdant valleys. In recent years, however, its forest cover and natural resources have rapidly deteriorated.

Accessibility to knowledge

Many villages are facing a similar crisis. The State, known to have spots designated as the ‘wettest places’ on earth, is now facing a severe water crisis. Natural resource management becomes critical in this context. This is not a new concept, especially in Meghalaya where traditional practices on sustainable use of natural resources have been passed down from one generation to another. This indigenous knowledge began to slowly fade, however, owing to population growth, the quest for unsustainable developmental activities and indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources, among other factors.

Another roadblock to natural resource management was of knowledge inaccessibility among rural communities. When free access to information on an issue is not made available to communities, they begin to rely on external agencies for solving their local problems. The government wanted to see if, when provided with correct knowledge, solutions to problems can be devised and even implemented by community members themselves, with proper facilitation support. Reactivating the community’s connection to natural resources and enabling them to tackle the resource crisis became a priority for the State.

We got an opportunity to do this through the World Bank-supported Meghalaya Community-Led Landscape Management Project. We set up a cross-functional team with diverse expertise. The team worked with many facilitators and empowered them with digital infrastructure. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme became the main scheme channelising resources to impact poor households so that there was systematic convergence of all line departments such as agriculture, horticulture, soil and water conservation. The programme leverages technology and the youth population.

Leveraging technology, more than 2,000 village community facilitators have already been trained and are working towards climate change reversal. These facilitators take informed action pertaining to their environment. The idea is to bring at least 14,000-18,000 community facilitators (three from each village) to the fore. This has been made possible with the help of digital applications like Participant Digital Attestation. This app allows community cadres to record their attendance by scanning QR codes. It provides them content, training sessions and digital certification. These tools help create a free flow of knowledge without hierarchy and empower communities to overcome knowledge barriers.

To build autonomy, we use simple tools. They have been designed keeping in mind many things: creating community agency, building the capacities of all persons in the programme, and ensuring frequent interactions among them. Technology empowers us with real-time data, which in turn results in better programme governance, transparency and accountability. Communities are now able to articulate the complexities of their problems through a scientific lens and create their own natural resource management plans.

A one-stop centre

To carry forward this momentum, we are launching a Centre of Excellence in Meghalaya, a one-stop centre for natural resources management. Its mandate is to build leadership capabilities to enable close cooperation among departments, democratise access to knowledge, and continue with research and development on every aspect of natural resource management. Through our work, we intend to empower thousands of village community facilitators.

Pamu Sampath Kumar, IAS, is Commissioner and Secretary to the Chief Minister and Abhishek Srivastava is Senior Manager of Arghyam, a public charitable Bengaluru-based foundation

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan was the first world leader who wholeheartedly welcomed the Taliban’s capture of Kabul on August 15 — before its fall, Pakistan had maintained that it had little leverage on the Taliban to force them to accept a ceasefire and that it backed a political solution in Afghanistan. However, on August 16, he said Afghans have “broken the shackles of slavery”, leaving little doubt on where Pakistan stands on the Taliban’s return. This is hardly surprising. Pakistan not only played a central role in the Taliban’s rise to power in the 1990s but was also one of the three countries to have had formal diplomatic ties with them. Pakistan continued to support the Taliban even after they were driven out of power by the U.S. in 2001. Its strategic calculus was that a stable Afghanistan backed by the U.S. and India would harm its core interests. It hosted the Taliban leadership in Quetta, Balochistan, and allowed their militants to regroup and resume insurgency in Afghanistan. In that sense, the Taliban’s capture of Kabul can be seen as the success of a long-term strategy Pakistan’s military establishment had adopted. But it is too early to begin celebrations.

The geopolitical implications of the Taliban’s victory are still unclear. But, irrespective of what kind of a government they will establish, the resurgence of a Sunni radical jihadist group could embolden similar outfits elsewhere. Pakistan has a problem with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the ideological twin of the Taliban, that has carried out deadly attacks inside Pakistan. Also, the August 26 Kabul blasts are a warning of what is awaiting Afghanistan. The country is still chaotic and lawless where groups such as the Islamic State Khorasan Province (IS-K), the IS affiliate that has claimed responsibility for the blasts, would seek to flourish. Without order, the country could fall into a multi-directional, civil war between the Taliban, the IS-K, and the remnants of the old regime. The question is whether Pakistan, overwhelmed by the Taliban’s success, sees the possible dangers the triumph of hardline Islamism now poses. Religious extremism and militancy can help one country tactically but will be counterproductive in the long term. When the U.S. backed the Mujahideen in the 1980s, it might never have imagined that the Taliban would rise from the Mujahideen and host the al Qaeda that would carry out the deadliest attack on America since the Second World War. Similarly, a chaotic Afghanistan ruled by extremist Islamists is as much a geopolitical victory as a security and strategic challenge to Pakistan. During the insurgency, Pakistan refused to use its leverage over the Taliban for peace. It should do so at least now because a stable Afghanistan which treats its people with dignity and does not provide safe havens to transnational terrorist organisations is in the best interests of all regional powers, including Pakistan.

In a megapolis teeming with skyscrapers, Novak Djokovic wants to be the tallest of them all. History beckons the Serbian tennis legend at the US Open currently progressing in New York. At present, Djokovic has drawn level with the other members of tennis royalty from the men’s side: Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. The ‘Big Three’ have won 20 Grand Slams each and Djokovic has a chance to move ahead and perhaps stay there unchallenged. His acclaimed and relatively older rivals have skipped their annual tryst with the Flushing Meadows, formally called the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Federer is recuperating from a knee surgery while Nadal is coping with a foot injury and it leaves the field marginally clear for the 34-year-old Djokovic, who is also chasing a calendar year Grand Slam after having won the Australian and French Opens besides the iconic Wimbledon. If Djokovic could lord over a year, he would become the first man to do that since the great Rod Laver’s clean sweep back in 1969. Among women, Steffi Graff was the last to achieve this feat in 1988. However, a record-busting quest is never easy. Djokovic is acutely conscious of that after having blown a chance to pocket a Golden Slam as he crashed out of the recent Tokyo Olympics, failing to even win a bronze.

Federer and Nadal’s contrasting styles, much akin to lyrical poetry and magnetic prose, may have colonised fans’ hearts but Djokovic has shown that unerring consistency has an enduring charm. The Serb has often roared back into contention, covering the court, closing out the angles and digging into vast reserves of physical and mental strength. Off the turf, he may not be the ideal hero, expressing reservations against COVID-19 vaccines, but on court, despite the odd petulant bouts reserved for his racquet, Djokovic has reigned. There is also the need to make amends at the US Open as last year he accidentally struck a line judge while taking a swipe at the ball and was suspended. Austrian Dominic Thiem won the championship then but he is missing now due to a wrist injury. Among the other young turks, Alexander Zverev, who defeated Djokovic at the Tokyo Olympic semifinals, Daniil Medvedev and Stefanos Tsitsipas get another opportunity to show their mettle. Meanwhile the women’s section will miss an injured Serena Williams and in a fluid set-up, Australian Ashleigh Barty holds the edge. Defending champion Naomi Osaka is on a comeback trail after she stepped aside citing mental issues during the French Open. Osaka has struggled on her return and lost in the third round of the Tokyo Olympics. She will draw attention just like a history-chasing Djokovic.

The Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi to-day deprecated bandhs and stressed the need for eradicating violence and maintaining communal harmony at a series of meetings with leaders of youth organisations, political parties and the INTUC here [Calcutta, Aug. 31]. She told a six-member deputation of the State INTUC led by its President Mr. Kali Mukherji that the bandhs tended to paralyse national economy and cripple the State administration. At this juncture it had also the effect of hampering relief to the millions of Bangla Desh refugees and flood- stricken people. She gave the assurance that the Union Labour Minister, Mr. R.K. Khadilkar was looking into the grievances of labour and they would be remedied early. Mrs. Gandhi arrived here from Cooch-Behar by an I.A.F. plane after visiting two refugee camps there and making an aerial survey of the flood-stricken areas of North Bengal. She told a large gathering of refugees at Betaguri camp that India fully supported the freedom struggle in Bangla Desh.

Old habits die hard and it remains to be seen if Stalin’s colleagues walk their leader’s talk. However, for now, those who seek to turn every public-funded scheme and programme into an occasion and opportunity for self praise and promotion, can pick up a lesson from Tamil Nadu.

There was a time when leaders like C Rajagopalachari, the first Indian Governor General, Periyar E V Ramasamy, and C N Annadurai towered over Tamil Nadu politics. Then came a time when cutouts started to define politics. M Karunanidhi and M G Ramachandran were leaders in their own right, of course. But the influence of a star-driven cinema over politics had changed the relations between politicians and voters to leader and follower. By the time matinee idol, J Jayalalithaa, became the chief minister, the leader demanded complete obeisance from the cadre. Senior ministers and party functionaries took the cue and would even prostrate before the leader in full public view. And the leader began to be omnipresent — on billboards, government advertisements, public transport, offices, freebies.

So it came as a surprise when M K Stalin, Karunanidhi’s heir and CM of Tamil Nadu, told his party legislators last week not to praise him while speaking in the Assembly. A day later, when Cuddalore MLA G Iyyappan started to praise the CM during a debate in the House, Stalin got up and warned that he would take action against the MLA for ignoring his order.

In fact, the first 100 days of Stalin as CM have been a departure from the days when political rivals even refused to acknowledge each other’s presence. Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa were such bitter rivals that he or she would skip the Assembly when the rival was CM. Stalin has made friendly overtures to Opposition leaders and even included Dr Vijayabhaskar, health minister in the Edappadi Palaniswami government, in his Covid management team. He has also instructed officials not to recall kits and freebies that carry the former CM’s picture. Old habits die hard and it remains to be seen if Stalin’s colleagues walk their leader’s talk. However, for now, those who seek to turn every public-funded scheme and programme into an occasion and opportunity for self praise and promotion, can pick up a lesson from Tamil Nadu.

Governments must resist imposing top-down technocratic solutions — and allow schools to take the lead in designing interventions or adapt to the developing Covid situation in their respective areas.

After over a year-and- a-half of closures, as Covid-19 cases decline and vaccination picks up, several states have begun to reopen schools. This is enormously welcome. By forcing schools shut since March 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic has thrown students and teachers into a deep crisis. The Centre’s short-sightedness in not including teachers as frontline workers whose inoculation must be prioritised, shares the blame for compounding school closures. Unless faced with emergency situations such as the question of holding board exams, governments have paid little attention to an education catastrophe in the making. According to a parliamentary standing committee report, “around 320 million children in India have not stepped into a classroom for more than a year.” The brunt of this blow has fallen on the vast majority of children who have no means to enter the digital classroom. Even for those able to access online classes, one-way digital learning has been a poor substitute for the physical classroom.

Teachers and educationists fear that the consequences of this schooling gap on learning, an area of concern even before Covid, might be formidable. A study carried out in January this year in five states by a research group from Azim Premji University found not only evidence of a learning loss, but an alarming regression in children’s abilities. Ninety-two per cent had lost one specific language ability and 82 per cent at least one specific mathematical ability from the previous year across all classes. The measure of the absence of school from the lives of children is not only in the loss of learning. It has had emotional costs — the loss of friendship and social skills — and most likely led to poor nutrition in the absence of hot cooked mid-day meals. For the most vulnerable, the pandemic has meant an end to education, or being forced into marriage or child labour.

Going back to school, therefore, comes with a set of daunting challenges — and not just involving social distancing protocols. From mapping the number of children who have dropped out of education and coaxing students back, to bridge courses that can help restore their skills and confidence, schools must be ready with nimble solutions. The urgent need to return primary school children to the physical classroom, too, can no longer be ignored if the inter-generational loss of learning is not to become permanent. On their part, governments must resist imposing top-down technocratic solutions — and allow schools to take the lead in designing interventions or adapt to the developing Covid situation in their respective areas.

In the Rajya Sabha, the Deputy Chairman, Shyam Lal Yadav, gave an indication that he would allow a call attention motion on Tuesday.

The reported collection of huge sums of money by a chief minister in the name of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi rocked both Houses of Parliament, culminating in a walkout in the Lok Sabha when the Speaker refused to admit an adjournment motion on the the subject. In the Rajya Sabha, the Deputy Chairman, Shyam Lal Yadav, gave an indication that he would allow a call attention motion on Tuesday. For well over 30 minutes, the Opposition in both Houses jointly demanded a detailed discussion on what it termed the “scandal of the century and the detestable attempt to use the prime minister as a “commodity of corruption”. Almost all Opposition members carried copies of The Indian Express, which gave details of the money collected by A R Antulay from business houses and cooperative societies.

Rail tragedy

Fifteen persons were killed and 39 injured when the New Delhi-bound Tamil Nadu Express derailed between Ralapet and Sirpur- Kagaznagar on Monday, the South Central railway announced in Hyderabad. The casualty figure was based on the recovery of bodies and the authorities did not rule out more victims. Of the 21 bogies of the super-fast express, 19 had derailed. Unofficial estimates put the death toll at 20.

Antulay’s future

The Maharashtra Chief Minister, A R Antulay faces renewed threats from dissidents. A delegation of state MLAs is expected to arrive in Delhi on Tuesday to meet the Prime Minister to complain against his style of functioning in general and fund collection in particular. According to Congress (I) High Command sources, Mrs Gandhi was unhappy with Antulay. A party spokesman, however, said that Antulay had not been asked to step down. The sources added that if Antulay resigned on his own, he would not be asked to stay on. Antulay met the prime minister on Monday morning in an attempt to p explain his controversial fund collection.

In the weeks and months thereafter, with the second wave waning and lockdown restrictions being eased, high frequency indicators suggest a strong uptick in momentum.

The economy grew by 20.1 per cent in the first quarter (April-June) of the current financial year — a period when the country was in the throes of the horrific second wave of the pandemic. In normal times, these year-on-year comparisons provide a fair understanding of the state of the economy. But the first quarter numbers suffer from a statistical distortion — a low base effect. The economy had contracted by 24.4 per cent in the first quarter of the previous financial year (2020-21) when a national lockdown was imposed to deal with the spread of the virus. Notwithstanding this, these numbers suggest that even though the second wave of the pandemic was more virulent than the first, the localised restrictions imposed during this period seem to have had a less deleterious effect on economic activity. And that even after growing at 20.1 per cent, GDP in the first quarter of the current year is around 9 per cent lower than what it was in the first quarter of 2019-20. Considering that the economy had reached pre-Covid levels in the second half of last year, this reflects the loss on account of the second wave of the pandemic.

The sectoral breakup of the GDP data shows that despite concerns over the dramatic spread of the virus in rural areas, agriculture has continued to hold up. In fact, of all the sectors in the economy, only value added by agriculture and electricity, gas and water supply, is higher than their pre-Covid levels. Manufacturing and construction — both sectors had contracted sharply last year — bounced back, but value added by these sectors has still not reached 2019-20 levels. In the labour intensive trade, hotel, transport and communications sector, the gap is even larger. On the expenditure side, even as private consumption and gross fixed capital formation, which connotes investment activity in the economy, exhibited high growth rates, they remained well below their 2019-20 levels. Only exports surpassed the 2019-20 levels.

In the weeks and months thereafter, with the second wave waning and lockdown restrictions being eased, high frequency indicators suggest a strong uptick in momentum. The Nomura India Business Resumption Index rose to 102.7 for the week ending August 29, up from 60.2 in May — indicating a return to pre-pandemic levels. But there is cause for concern. For one, the quarterly GDP data does not accurately capture trends in the informal economy. As such, it is difficult to know the extent of its recovery from the depths of May. This, and how MSMEs are faring, will have a bearing on employment prospects. Second, with household demand subdued, and capacity utilisation rates low, private investment is likely to remain muted. The ability of government spending to drive growth is also constrained at this juncture. Exports, though, could provide the much needed fillip to growth. Third, even as the pace of vaccination has picked up, there continues to be uncertainty over the prospects of a third wave.

This editorial first appeared in the print edition on September 1, 2021 under the title ‘Terms of recovery’.

Manish Tewari writes: What we owe the generation that suffered its horrors is a degree of equanimity and sensitivity when we recall those terrible times, not a politically loaded metaphor of polarisation.

On August 21, I travelled to Amritsar to pay obeisance at the Golden Temple and Durgiana Mandir, both powerful symbols of Punjab’s syncretic past and present. These shrines are revered by Hindus and Sikhs alike. They symbolise the quintessence of the state’s ethos — Punjab, Punjabi and Punjabiyat.

Since the prime minister had made a grandiloquent announcement that August 14 every year would be observed as Partition Horrors Remembrance Day, I made it a point to spend an hour in the Partition Museum located in the iconic Town Hall building. It was a sobering walk down the bloodstained pathways of history that stand as mute witnesses to the depravity of humankind.

I was born 18 years after Partition and grew up in Le Corbusier’s little fantasy town, Chandigarh. Our parents and even grandparents never really ever talked about the Partition. There was always the collective desire to just move on.

My first real acquaintance with the horrors that unfolded during the months before and after August 15, 1947 came in 2004 during my first parliamentary election campaign. As we hopped from village to village, many of them with typically Muslim sounding names especially along the banks of the river Satluj, one of our MLAs who is getting on in years educated me by reliving those traumatic times. He had come across from Sialkot, now in the Punjab that is part of Pakistan, to the rural heartland of east Punjab (Indian Punjab) in a buffalo-drawn wagon and had seen it all first hand. The vivid memories of those days would still bring a lump to his throat.

The term he used to describe the Partition was “ujara” or devastation, not “batwara” or division. Over the next 10 years from 2004-14, as we bounced from village to village during my public outreach programme in Ludhiana, this elderly gentleman became a kaleidoscope of memories about life before and after the Partition. He would emotionally recount the horror of that two-and-a-half month journey that uprooted them from their home and hearth and transported them into completely alien environs and the struggle to build a life all over again. The reason I have recounted this episode in detail is to attempt to bring home the bewilderment of an 11-year-old boy becoming an outsider in his home in the blink of an eye. This was the fate of millions like him. This is what Partition means to us Punjabis.

Over 5,00,000 people are said to have perished on the borders of a divided Punjab between July and September of 1947. Over 15 million crossed over the lines drawn on a map by the British barrister Sir Cyril Radcliffe who had not even set foot in India before unleashing this perversity. Independence meant rape, homelessness, if not death for many. Hindu, Sikh or Muslim, it didn’t matter. It was equal opportunity free- for-all mayhem.

In Bengal, the wanton loot and bloodletting on Direct Action Day, Noakhali riots, the Kalshira massacre, Nachole killings, and many more such horrific tragedies, have stained our history books.

While there are a myriad of theories about what led to the Partition — whether it was an imperial plot or events overwhelmed the makers of modern India and therefore made it inevitable — the fact remains that what emerged out of the ravages of this inferno was an Islamic Pakistan and two competing visions of India. A theocratic conception articulated by the right wing that conceives of India as a Hindu Rashtra, and an inclusive construct that believes that the idea of India has to be a nation where faith does not define an individual.

This is the fundamental ideological battle, going back seven decades. It is between those who want to make hate the life force of India and others who want to let go of hate and anger and make India the sky under which all could find shelter and not only survive but thrive and be prosperous.

The terrifying reality of Partition is a horror movie not only for India but for three nations of this sub- continent. Rather than bolstering people’s understanding of the Partition and the circumstances that led to it, such remembrances, if not carefully designed, would only further irrigate and perpetuate the hate that has held the field in the Indian subcontinent for the past 70 years.

Lord Mountbatten presented the Partition plan for India on June 3 1947 and the Radcliffe Award that partitioned the country was officially announced on August 17 1947 at 7 pm in the evening. Then what is the rationale behind designating August 14 as Partition Horrors Remembrance Day? It has only one purpose — to accentuate the otherness of the “other”. While the Muslim League is certainly culpable for the Partition of India, so are the right-wingers whose public advocacy of two separate nations based on religion pre-dates the formal articulation of this demand by the Muslim League by a couple of decades.

The Partition Horrors Remembrance Day is a terribly divisive idea that mocks the pain, suffering, tears and tribulations of all those people who suffered that carnage. What we owe that generation is a degree of equanimity and sensitivity when we recall those terrible times, not a politically loaded metaphor of polarisation.

Udaya S Mishra, William Joe writes: Test Positivity Rates provide a false picture about the Covid- 19 spread. Greater access to testing and greater sensitivity to the virus make Kerala’s numbers higher.

The pandemic’s persistence and the devastation of two waves of widespread infection have led to serious scientific engagement with the assessment of its possible trajectories, particularly after the vaccination drive has been in full swing as well as the periodic sero-positivity surveillance. At the onset of the pandemic, the common yardstick of its intensity was the case fatality rates and the use of this measure for comparison was fraught with many limitations.

The primary difficulty was to have the corresponding fatalities of the cases that were in the denominator and, therefore, a lagged measure of case fatality was preferred. However, this measure did not entail an appropriate comparison across the population given that the fatality associated with Covid-19 intensified with pre- disposed risks of the patient in terms of chronic morbidities as well as the age profile along with the presentation of the case at a hospital. Case fatality rates were further conditioned by the available health infrastructure as well as the inadequacy of critical care availability. These limitations have made case fatality rates less visible in the current discourse, following the devastating fatality levels (otherwise understated in government records) and with the rising levels of testing with increasing capacities all across the nation. Alternatively, when two waves of the infection have already passed, it is assumed that a much greater number of the population got exposed to the infection without realising it, and either lost the battle or recovered. This is also the impression that is emerging from the periodic sero-surveillance findings — the numbers seem to be systematically improving over time in the Indian population in general, with wide variations across regions.

The most recent yardstick of Test Positivity Rates (TPR) guiding the trajectory of the pandemic in terms of its potential spread as well as the differential levels of containment measures appears to indicate something that is unbelievable. The trends in sero-prevalence coupled with the levels of immunisation coverage and a very low level of TPR situates the regions of India with relatively poor infrastructure and human resources for healthcare in an advantageous position against regions that have all the systems and protocols in place. The most recent mapping of the infection around the country shows that Kerala is contributing half the national infection rates with unacceptably high levels of TPR. This is not only surprising but raises genuine doubts about the comparability of TPR levels.

Comparability not only depends on the magnitude of testing but also the testing protocols adopted by the health system. Test positivity rates are not merely a function of the levels of testing carried out but also the entire “tracing, tracking and testing” protocol followed by the system. While the spread of infection is undoubtedly shaped by the violation of Covid protocols, it is also largely the asymptomatic carriers that are spreading it within homes or the community. In Kerala, the testing is done in clusters where positive cases are found and the likelihood of positivity is obviously greater than the general population.

The use of interstate comparison of TPRs to comment on a state’s efficiency seems far-fetched, overlooking the manner and extent of testing. Testing is a voluntary initiative — apart from cases presenting in clinical facilities. Kerala’s population has volunteered for more testing because a negative test is a prerequisite for intra-state mobility. Comparisons of TPR should not ignore the fact that access to testing infrastructure varies widely across states. Greater access to testing and greater sensitivity to the spread of Covid-19 makes Kerala’s numbers higher — and more genuine. The TPR mapping across the country could well be illusory, if a large majority is neither tested nor vaccinated, and the sero-prevalence indicates greater immunity compared to Kerala’s population.

If a genuine comparative assessment is to be made then the entire road from the detection of infection to recovery has to be evaluated. Such an evaluation should include the number of patients needing hospitalised care, the rate of their progression to oxygen dependence, ICU care and ventilators and finally, fatalities. In fact, comparative evaluation of this kind is perhaps not possible in many of the northern and eastern states, given the abysmal inadequacy of infrastructure there. In the final analysis, Kerala’s case fatality rate as of August 20 remains among the lowest — 0.51 — of all Indian states and against a national average CFR of 1.36. This bears true testimony to the management of the infection by the healthcare system of the state. The claimed immunity across a majority of Indian states may be falsified again with the emergence of another wave after the festive season.

It is clear that any opportunity to demolish the image of a protocol-driven, well-functioning healthcare system is used by those engaged in competitive politics based on false assumptions. These assumptions can put the entire population at risk of a devastating third, fourth wave. The lesson is to avoid politics and politicisation when it comes to human lives. The pandemic scenario will remain gloomy until and unless vaccination coverage is advanced and healthcare infrastructure is increased to meet future uncertainties.

Anita Karwal writes: The Samagra Shiksha scheme aims to make learning equitable and joyful and to bring synchronicity in the experience of both teachers and learners

Out of the 293 transformative paragraphs of the National Education Policy 2020, about 180 are dedicated to school education. Provisions of 86 of those paragraphs figure in the revamped Samagra Shiksha 2.0 scheme that was approved by the Union government on August 4.

Recently, a video of a six-year-old girl making a strong case for reducing the burden of studies went viral. This monologue was an appeal to usher in joyful education in our schools. Samagra Shiksha or holistic education is essentially joyful education: It encompasses the physical, social, emotional, and mental well-being of the child alongside academic and skill development in an integrated format. Version 2.0 of the scheme focuses on access and retention, strengthening foundations, equity and inclusion, quality and standards, holistic curriculum and pedagogy, assessment reforms, capacity building and stakeholder participation, and technology integration.

There are over 25 crore children in the 6-18 age group. The first thing they require is affordable access to quality education. The scheme has been funding basic school infrastructure, textbooks, uniforms and admissions to private schools under RTE Act since its inception. But for the first time, pre-school infrastructure and workshop/laboratory cum classroom for vocational education shall also be funded in the 2.0 scheme. For retention after class 8 and 10, the scheme will provide transport for students to attend formal school. It aims to attract 16 to 19 year-old out-of-school children through the Open School system.

From the pre-school stage itself, it is crucial to focus on learning to read, write, communicate and do basic math operations. The NIPUN Bharat Mission for foundational literacy and numeracy is a first-time component under the new Samagra Shiksha. Play and toy-based teaching- learning material and pedagogy will be the cornerstone of building this foundation. On connecting and engaging with people, objects, representations, children acquire a context. Play-based learning is strongly linked cognitive, language, thinking, communication, collaboration and psychomotor skills.

Gender-related interventions have been strengthened by giving additional funds for extending Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas to grade 12, and provisioning of sanitary pad vending machines and incinerators in all girls’ hostels. The self-defence training component is now extended from grades 6 to 12. Disabled girls from pre-school to grade 12 will now get a separate amount as a stipend and separate funding for aids and appliances, etc.

There are 21 disabilities identified under the PwD Act of 2016, many of which are difficult to identify in a classroom setting. Children whose disabilities remain unidentified find it difficult to adjust to schooling and their teachers have no idea of their specific pedagogical requirements. The revamped Samagra Shiksha for the first time provides for block-level camps for identification and training of special educators and equipping Block Resource Centres and home-based schooling for severe and profound disabilities.

The quality and standards component has several new aspects too. Aside from DIKSHA, ICT Labs, other digital initiatives, science labs, engaging teaching-learning material, curricular and pedagogical reforms, and tinkering labs,, the inclusion of a holistic progress card, topic circles, bagless days, criterion-referenced item banks, and school complexes for efficient schooling, heralds a shift towards competency-based education. For every school that gets at least two medals in Khelo India at the national level, a grant of Rs 25,000 awaits.

Capacity building will now focus not just on in-service teacher training but also on building capacities of stakeholders — school management committee members, parents, PTA, etc. Institutional strengthening of State Councils for Educational Research and Training (SCERT), District Institutions for Educational Training, Block and Cluster Resource Centres are expected to re-invigorate the teaching community. A special assessment cell is being set up in each SCERT to take assessment reforms forward in all states/UTs. The earlier system of funding subject streams has been done away with, and any combination of subjects will now be funded.

Infusing joy at every stage and in every aspect of school education in a holistic manner, with the complete support and participation of all stakeholders is the way forward not only for inducing positivity in the system, but also for bringing synchronicity in the experience of both teachers and learners.

Vivek Katju writes: ‘Strategic patience’ cannot be an alibi for inaction

The American withdrawal from Afghanistan was messy, hit by terror and tragic, especially for many Afghans. All of that is without question America’s fault. Just note that although the US and its allies evacuated well over 1,00,000 people in recent weeks, some of their citizens as well as countless Afghans who worked with the foreign forces remain behind. Their fate is in the hands of Taliban, and America should acknowledge it has lost much of its leverage on that group, should the latter want to play rough.

How Taliban plays will depend on the outcome of what it says are continuing internal discussions to form an inclusive government. Leaders of the outfit are reportedly briefing their chief Haibatullah Akhunzada. But internal consensus may not be easy as exemplified by reports of local Taliban commanders disregarding their leaders’ amnesty declaration and hunting down former Afghan security and government personnel. There are also questions about what exactly inclusive means – whether former political players in Kabul will be accommodated and whether Afghanistan’s tribal divisions will be reflected in power sharing. Add to this the threat posed by ISIS-K, which has rejected Taliban’s peace deal with Americans and appears to have the latitude to operate independently inside Afghanistan.

With no bases in neighbouring countries and drone attacks more a revenge play than a counterterrorism measure – aside from the fact they often hit innocents as well as terrorists – there’s little the US can do if Taliban allows Afghanistan to again regress into an international terror launchpad. In fact, even with Pakistan’s so-called influence over Taliban, militants from across the Durand Line fired and killed two Pakistani soldiers on Sunday.

So, a plateful of problems for India. The biggest being it needs to be prepared for the Pakistani military-ISI complex using the situation in Afghanistan to step up anti-India terror activities. There are already reports of JeM and LeT increasing their efforts to push militants into Jammu and Kashmir. Clearly, there are too many moving parts in Afghanistan today and therefore it would be best to adopt a wait-and-watch approach to recognising the incoming Taliban regime. The Indian ambassador in Qatar yesterday met Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, head of Taliban’s political office in Doha, while the UNSC under India’s presidency has adopted a resolution calling for Afghan territory not to be used to shelter terrorists. New Delhi must now work with Washington to draw red lines for Taliban, offering recognition and investments as incentives for fulfilling anti-terror commitments. And hope that these incentives work.

The Indian economy weathered the surge in Covid cases during the second wave quite well and GDP during the April-June quarter grew 20.1%. To place it in context, the corresponding period last year saw GDP shrink by 24.4% because of a tight nationwide lockdown that crippled the economy. This year, however, localised lockdowns minimised dislocation. Consequently, all segments, particularly construction and manufacturing, recorded high growth rates. Construction grew 68.3% and manufacturing by 49.6%.

A measure of the likely cost of the second wave is the difference between RBI’s forecast in early April and the data released yesterday. In early April, RBI forecast GDP growth of 26.2% in the April- June quarter, about six percentage points higher than the final result. Consequently, GDP in April-June is still lower than that recorded in the corresponding period of the pre-pandemic year, 2019. Aggregate demand continues to be lacklustre. Private consumption was Rs 17.83 lakh crore, higher by 19.34% from April-June 2020, but lagging the overall growth rate. On the other hand, the growth in fixed investment was huge, up by 55.31% to Rs 10.22 lakh crore as GoI is pushing ahead with its projects.

The puzzle however is the fiscal stance of GoI. Expenditure is on a tight leash in the midst of an economic shock. To illustrate, revenue and fiscal deficits are generally over 100% of the annual target around this phase as spending is frontloaded. This year, however, they were 15-18% of the annual target till end-July. Consequently, fiscal and monetary policies are not in sync. Quarterly GDP data tends to underestimate the hit to the informal sector during a shock. Even with current activity indices showing the return to normalcy, GoI may need to use the fiscal space to provide targeted support. The key takeaway though is that stringent national lockdowns should be avoided.

South Korea’s parliament yesterday passed a new law that imposes curbs on anti-competitive behaviour of large app store operators such as Google and Apple. It’s reported to be the first law of its kind in the fast evolving regulatory landscape of big technology platforms.

The backstory is that these platforms have used their heft to force software developers to use their in-house payment systems which lead to revenue for the platform in the form of commissions. South Korea’s law ends this practice and opens the door to competing payment systems.

This law is a milestone in the global regulatory landscape that is searching for ways to curb practices of tech platforms that undermine competition, without in any way undercutting the positive dimensions of tech platforms.

Separately, the EU is debating a draft law introduced in December, Digital Markets Act, which aims to check harmful behaviour of tech platforms when they act as digital gatekeepers.

The churn arises from a unique feature of the digital economy: Economies of scope. It allows for rapid horizontal expansion into new services while remaining a gatekeeper. The evolving regulatory landscape is trying to find ways to curb the inherent conflict of interest in this model.

Are large startups pre-empting competition by swallowing potential rivals? Are Indian founders losing control to foreign capital? These are valid concerns.

BillDesk, one of India’s earliest payment gateways, has been bought by PayU, a global operator and investor in the payment space, owned by Napster’s investment arm Prosus, for $4.7 billion in an all-cash deal. Earlier this month, a Japanese company took over Robosoft, an app developer based in Udupi, for ₹805 crore. These are, of course, just two of scores of mergers and acquisitions in India’s startup space, including by startups of startups. Then there are the mega initial public offerings by startups such as Zomato. But these two are sufficient to tell a very exciting story that should inspire many more Indians, young and old, to start up and make good, whether in big cities or small towns.

Education, healthcare, finance, entertainment, mobility, human resource management, maintenance and repair, manufacture, logistics — every sector is going digital, and getting disrupted. And turning into gold, as if touched by Midas. Now, Udupi is a town that most Indians would associate with the Mysore masala dosa, rather than with technology. Udupi has more than its fair share of keen bankers, too, but that is a different story. What matters is that innovation and disruption are possible even from relatively small towns. What matters is educated manpower, entrepreneurial flair and sufficient risk capital, assuming the physical infrastructure needed to sustain participation in the global digital economy is available. When new companies are formed, grow big and are taken over, their founders turn venture capitalists and found, fund or acquire new ventures, creating a virtuous cycle of value creation. Edtech major Byju’s illustrates the process.

Is there a downside to such acquisitions? Are large startups pre-empting competition by swallowing potential rivals? Are Indian founders losing control to foreign capital? These are valid concerns. However, the scope for fresh entry and disruption is so high in India that policy should encourage rather than throttle such consolidation. Every acquisition generates funds for new ventures.

The policy push for EVs, particularly when applied to public transport, will cut back on fossil fuels and their steep import bill, now fast approaching the $100-billion mark annually.

High-profile CEO Elon Musk wants India to slash import duties on cars to make it viable for him to launch Tesla electric vehicles (EVs) here. Import duties in India are generally high, particularly on cars. Ideally, these should be reduced. However, the current duty structure was put in place as part of a policy to create an electric vehicle manufacturing ecosystem in India, Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles (FAME). Companies have made investments on the basis of the policy, including Tata Motors, a vocal opponent of duty cuts. While we would normally argue for lower import duties, on this occasion, that would be the wrong policy. Policy stability and predictability are vital for businesses to take off and grow.

Duties do need to come down and, for that, there must be a clear roadmap made available in advance. Domestic producers and their foreign competitors should both know when the infant-industry protective regime would be lifted and the domestic sector prised open for competition. Otherwise, front-loading duty cuts would essentially amount to applying policy brakes on indigenisation of the green vehicles and their localisation. South Korean automobile major Hyundai and Germany’s Volkswagen have joined the chorus for duty cuts on EVs. Nimble Chinese EV makers would join them, too. But it cannot be gainsaid that it is localisation and revved-up domestic production that would drive faster adoption of EVs and make them affordable.

The policy push for EVs, particularly when applied to public transport, will cut back on fossil fuels and their steep import bill, now fast approaching the $100-billion mark annually. In tandem, we need a charging infrastructure and charging-rate schedules to integrate renewable power.