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Editorials - 04-08-2021

நீதிமன்றம் விசித்திரமான பல வழக்குகளைச் சந்தித்திருக்கிறது. இந்த வழக்கு, விசித்திரமும் அல்ல, வழக்கு தொடுத்தவர்கள் விசித்திரமானவர்களும் அல்லர். இது மேட்டுக்குடியினர் பொதுவாகவே அங்கலாய்க்கும் தெருவோர, நாற்சந்தி பிச்சைக்காரர்கள் குறித்த வழக்கு. அதனால்தானோ என்னவோ, ஊடகங்களில் போதிய கவனம் பெறவில்லை.
தலைநகர் தில்லியிலுள்ள நாற்சந்திகளில் காணப்படும் பிச்சைக்காரர்களை அகற்ற வேண்டும் என்று கூறி தொடுக்கப்பட்ட பொதுநல வழக்கில், பிச்சை எடுப்பதை தடை செய்ய முடியாது என்று மறுத்துவிட்டது உச்சநீதிமன்றம். மத்திய அரசுக்கும், தில்லி அரசுக்கும் விளக்கம் கேட்டு "நோட்டீஸ்' அனுப்பியிருக்கிறது. பிச்சைக்காரர்களுக்கு மறுவாழ்வு ஏற்படுத்திக் கொடுப்பது குறித்தும், அவர்களுக்கு கொள்ளை நோய்த்தொற்றுக்கு எதிரான தடுப்பூசி போடுவது குறித்தும் அரசுகளின் நடவடிக்கைகளை தெரிவிக்கக் கோரியிருக்கிறது.
2018-இல் இதேபோல ஒரு வழக்கு தில்லி உயர்நீதிமன்றத்தில் தொடுக்கப்பட்டது. தலைநகரத்தில் பிச்சை எடுப்பதை கிரிமினல் குற்றமாக்கும் சட்டத்தை நிராகரித்தது மட்டுமல்லாமல், பிச்சை எடுப்பவர்களைக் குற்றமிழைத்தவர்களாக்கும் எந்தவொரு முயற்சியும் மிகவும் பாதிக்கப்பட்ட மக்களின் அடிப்படை உரிமையைப் பறிப்பதாக அமையும் என்றும் தில்லி உயர்நீதிமன்றம் தீர்ப்பு வழங்கியது.
பிச்சை எடுப்பதை தடை செய்ய எந்தவொரு மத்திய அரசு சட்டமும் இல்லை. ஆனால், 20 மாநிலங்களிலும், இரண்டு ஒன்றியப் பிரதேசங்களிலும் பிச்சை எடுப்பதை குற்றமாக்கும் சட்டம் இயற்றப்பட்டிருக்கிறது.
ஐரோப்பிய சட்டமொன்றின் அடிப்படையில் 1959-இல் "பம்பாய் பிச்சைக்காரர்கள் தடுப்புச் சட்டம்' நிறைவேற்றப்பட்டது. அதன்படி, பிச்சை எடுப்பவர்களை மூன்று முதல் பத்து ஆண்டுகளுக்கு பிச்சைக்காரர்கள் இல்லத்தில் காவலில் (பார்வையில்) வைக்கலாம் என்று கூறப்பட்டிருக்கிறது.
வாழ வழியில்லாத ஏழைகள், நாடோடிகள், தெருக்கூத்து கலைஞர்கள், புலம்பெயர்ந்த தொழிலாளர்கள் என்று தங்களுக்கென இருப்பிட ஆதாரமோ, தன்விவர ஆவணமோ இல்லாத யாரை வேண்டுமானாலும் அந்தச் சட்டத்தின் அடிப்படையில் காவல்துறையினர் கைது செய்யலாம். மாதாந்திர வழக்கு எண்ணிக்கையைக் காட்டுவதற்கு காவலர்கள் இந்தச் சட்டத்தை பயன்படுத்துவது வழக்கமாகிவிட்டது.
மும்பை பிச்சைக்காரர்கள் தடுப்புச் சட்டம் 1959-இன் அடிப்படையில்தான், 20 மாநிலங்களும், இரண்டு ஒன்றியப் பிரதேசங்களும் பிச்சைக்காரர்களுக்கு எதிரான தங்களது சட்டத்தைக் கட்டமைத்தன. தில்லி உயர்நீதிமன்றம் அந்தச் சட்டத்தின் பல பிரிவுகளை வாழ்க்கைக்கும், வாழ்வாதாரத்திற்கும், சுயமரியாதை உரிமைக்கும் புறம்பானவை என்று ரத்து செய்து உத்தரவிட்டது. அந்தப் பின்னணியில்தான் இப்போதைய உச்சநீதிமன்றத் தீர்ப்பும் அமைந்திருக்கிறது.
2011 மக்கள்தொகை கணக்கெடுப்பின்படி, இந்தியாவில் நான்கு லட்சத்துக்கும் அதிகமானோர் பிச்சை எடுப்பதில் ஈடுபட்டிருக்கிறார்கள். இதைவிடப் பல மடங்கு அதிகமானோர் இரந்து வாழ்கிறார்கள் என்பதுதான் உண்மை. வாழ்வாதாரத்துக்கான எந்தவொரு வழியும் இல்லாத நிலையில்தான் அவர்களில் பலரும் இரந்து வாழ வேண்டிய கட்டாயத்துக்குத் தள்ளப்படுகிறார்கள்.
அவர்களில் கணிசமானோர் தங்கள் பிள்ளைகளாலும், உறவினர்களாலும் கைவிடப்பட்ட முதியோர் என்பதை மறந்துவிடக் கூடாது. அவர்களின் மறுவாழ்வுக்கான வழிமுறைகள் உருவாக்கப்படாத வரை இந்தப் பிரச்னையை முற்றிலுமாகத் தடுத்துவிட முடியாது. அவர்களுக்காக அமைக்கப்படும் இல்லங்களும், பயிற்சிக் கூடங்களும் அரசின் மானியத்தைப் பெறுவதில்தான் குறியாக இருக்கின்றனவே தவிர, பிச்சைக்காரர்களுக்கு மறுவாழ்வு அமைத்துக் கொடுப்பதிலோ, அவர்களுக்கு உணவும் இருப்பிடமும் கொடுத்து அவர்களை கெளரவமாகப் பாதுகாப்பதிலோ அக்கறை காட்டுவதில்லை.
கடந்த அரை நூற்றாண்டு காலத்தில் இரந்து வாழ்பவர்களின் எண்ணிக்கை அச்சமளிக்கும் விதத்தில் அதிகரித்திருக்கிறது. வாழ்வாதாரம் இல்லாமல் பிச்சை எடுப்பவர்கள் மட்டுமல்லாமல், மாஃபியாக்களின் கட்டுப்பாட்டில் அதை ஒரு தொழிலாக நடத்தும் கொடுமையும் எல்லா பெருநகரங்களிலும் உருவாகி இருக்கிறது.
இந்த மாஃபியாக்கள் அடிமை வியாபாரிகளைப்போல வாழ்வாதாரம் அற்றவர்களை மிரட்டி அடிபணிய வைத்துத் தொழில் நடத்துகிறார்கள். ஆண்டுதோறும் 40,000-க்கும் அதிகமான குழந்தைகள் கடத்தப்பட்டு உடல் ஊனமுள்ளவர்களாகவும், பாலியல் கொடுமைக்கு ஆளாக்கப்பட்டும், போதை மருந்துக்கு வசப்பட்டவர்களாகவும் மாற்றப்பட்டு பிச்சை எடுக்கும் தொழிலில் ஈடுபடுத்தப்படுகிறார்கள்.
மாஃபியாக்களின் பிடியிலிருந்து லட்சக்கணக்கானோர் காப்பாற்றப்பட்டாக வேண்டும். அவர்களின் பிடியில் சிக்காதவர்களும்கூட மனிதாபிமானத்துடன் அணுகப்பட்டு மறுவாழ்வுக்கு வழிகோலப்பட வேண்டும். வறுமை, வேலைவாய்ப்பின்மை, கல்வி அறிவின்மை, மாற்றுத்திறனாளிகளாக இருப்பது போன்றவைதான் இரந்து வாழ்பவர்களின் எண்ணிக்கை அதிகரிக்கக் காரணம் என்பதை உணர்ந்தால் இந்தப் பிரச்னைக்கு தீர்வு காண முடியும்.
ஹிந்து மதத்தைப் பொருத்தவரை, "பிக்ஷை’(இரந்து வாழ்தல்) என்பது உயரிய வாழ்க்கை முறையாக ஏற்றுக்கொள்ளப்பட்டது. அந்தணர்கள் அன்றாடம் இரந்துண்டு வாழ வேண்டும் என்பது விதியாகவே விதிக்கப்பட்டது. புத்த பிக்குகளுக்கும் அதேபோலத்தான். இஸ்லாமிலும் "ஜகாத்' அங்கீகரிக்கப்பட்டது.
கடைக்கோடி குடிமகன் வரை அனைவருக்கும் வாழ்வாதாரம் உறுதிப்படும்வரை ஏழ்மையை குற்றமாக சித்திரிக்கும் எந்தவொரு சட்டமும் தார்மிக ரீதியாகவும், நடைமுறையிலும் தவறு.

இந்தியத் தொல்லியல் துறையால் நாடு முழுவதும் பராமரிக்கப்பட்டுவரும் பாரம்பரியமான கோயில்கள், வரலாற்றுச் சின்னங்கள் ஆகியவை அமைந்துள்ள பகுதிகளில் மிகச் சிலவற்றில் மட்டுமே குடிநீர் உள்ளிட்ட அடிப்படை வசதிகள் செய்யப்பட்டிருக்கின்றன என்று வெளிவந்திருக்கும் தகவல்கள் இது குறித்து மத்திய - மாநில அரசுகளின் அக்கறையின்மையைத்தான் எடுத்துக்காட்டுகின்றன. சமீபத்தில், மஹாராஷ்டிரத்தைச் சேர்ந்த பாஜகவின் மக்களவை உறுப்பினர் அசோக் மகாதியோராவ் நேத்தே எழுப்பிய கேள்விக்கு மத்திய அரசின் பண்பாட்டுத் துறை அமைச்சர் கிஷன் ரெட்டி அளித்திருக்கும் பதில்கள் இத்தகைய அதிர்ச்சித் தகவல்களை வெளிச்சத்துக்குக் கொண்டுவந்திருக்கின்றன.

தமிழ்நாட்டில் மட்டும் இந்தியத் தொல்லியல் துறையால் பராமரிக்கப்பட்டுவரும் கோயில்கள் மற்றும் வரலாற்றுச் சின்னங்களின் எண்ணிக்கை 412. இவற்றில் 78 இடங்களில் மட்டுமே குடிநீர் வசதிகள் செய்யப்பட்டுள்ளன. கழிப்பறை வசதியுள்ள இடங்கள் வெறும் 26 மட்டுமே. சாலை வசதிகளைக் கொண்டிருப்பவை 283, வாகன நிறுத்துமிட வசதிகளைக் கொண்டிருப்பவை 23 மட்டுமே. வழிகாட்டும் பலகைகளைக் கொண்டிருப்பவை 116. அமர்வதற்கான இருக்கை வசதிகளைக் கொண்டிருப்பவை 21 மட்டும். தமிழ்நாடு மட்டுமல்ல, இந்தியாவின் மற்ற மாநிலங்களிலும் இதுதான் நிலை. மக்களிடம் உள்ள இயல்பான வரலாற்றுணர்வு தொல்லியல் சின்னங்கள் மற்றும் பாரம்பரியப் பகுதிகளை நோக்கிய சுற்றுலா வளர்ச்சிக்கும் உதவக்கூடியது. அத்தகைய பொருளாதார வாய்ப்புகளைக்கூட மத்திய - மாநில அரசுகள் போதிய கவனத்தில் கொள்ளவில்லை.

பராமரிப்பிலுள்ள அனைத்துக் கோயில்கள் மற்றும் பாரம்பரிய இடங்களிலும் பயணிகளுக்குத் தேவையான அடிப்படை வசதிகளை உடனடியாகச் செய்துகொடுக்கக்கூடிய நிதியாதாரங்களோ மனித வளமோ இந்தியத் தொல்லியல் துறையிடம் இல்லை. அதற்காகக் காத்துக்கொண்டிருக்காமல் தொல்லியல் துறையில் ஆர்வம் கொண்ட அமைப்புகள், தன்னார்வலர்களுடன் இணைந்து இந்த வசதிகளை மேம்படுத்துவது குறித்து பரிசீலிக்க வேண்டும். இந்தியத் தொல்லியல் துறையால் பராமரிக்கப்படும் வரலாற்றுச் சின்னங்கள் மற்றும் பாரம்பரியப் பகுதிகளை அதிக அளவில் கொண்டிருக்கும் மாநிலங்களில் தமிழ்நாடு மூன்றாவது இடத்தில் இருக்கிறது. இந்து சமய அறநிலையத் துறை தமது நிர்வாகத்தில் உள்ள பழமையான கோயில்களை இந்தியத் தொல்லியல் துறையின் வழிகாட்டுதல்களுடன் பாதுகாக்கவும் புதுப்பிக்கவும் சென்னை உயர் நீதிமன்றம் 75 உத்தரவுகளுடன் கூடிய விரிவான தீர்ப்பைச் சமீபத்தில் அளித்துள்ளது. அத்தீர்ப்பின் வெளிச்சத்தில், தொல்லியல் முக்கியத்துவம் கொண்ட கோயில்களுக்கு வரும் பயணிகளுக்கு இந்து சமய அறநிலையத் துறையே இத்தகைய அடிப்படை வசதிகளைச் செய்துகொடுக்கலாம்.

எப்போதும் இல்லாத அளவுக்குத் தமிழ்நாட்டில் அரசிடமும் மக்களிடமும் தொல்லியல் ஆர்வம் எழுந்துள்ளது. மண்ணுக்குள் மறைந்துகிடக்கும் வரலாற்றுச் சான்றுகளைக் கண்டறிவதில் உள்ள ஆர்வமும் அக்கறையும் அழியும் நிலையிலுள்ள பண்பாட்டு அடையாளங்களைப் பாதுகாப்பதை நோக்கியும் திரும்பட்டும். அவற்றைக் காண வரும் பயணிகளுக்கு உரிய வசதிகளைச் செய்துகொடுப்பது மத்திய, மாநில அரசுகள், உள்ளாட்சி அமைப்புகள் அனைத்தின் பொறுப்பாகவும் மாறட்டும்.

குழந்தைகளுக்குத் தாய்மார்கள் கொடுக்கும் உன்னதப் பரிசு தாய்ப்பால். குழந்தை பிறந்த முதல் மூன்று நாட்களில் கிடைக்கும் சீம்பால் விலைமதிப்பற்றது. தாய்ப்பாலில் எல்லா வகையான ஊட்டச்சத்து, உயிர்ச்சத்து, புரதச்சத்து ஆகியவை அதிகமாக இருப்பதால் குழந்தைகளின் முழுமையான உடல், மன வளர்ச்சிக்கு அது காரணமாகிறது.

இரைப்பை சார்ந்த சிக்கல்கள், நிமோனியா, நீரிழிவு, வயிற்றுப்போக்கு உள்ளிட்ட நோய்களிலிருந்து குழந்தைகளைப் பாதுகாப்பதுடன் சுவாசத் தொற்றிலிருந்தும் ஒவ்வாமையிலிருந்தும் தாய்ப்பால் காக்கிறது. ஞாபக சக்தி, சிந்தனைத் திறன், அறிவுக் கூர்மை அதிகரிக்கிறது. பிறருடன் பழகுவதற்கும், தங்கள் உணர்வுகளைக் குழந்தைகள் ஒழுங்குபடுத்திக்கொள்வதற்கும் உதவுகிறது. மூளை வளர்ச்சிக்கும் தாய்ப்பால் குடிப்பதற்குமான தொடர்பை நிறைய ஆய்வுகள் நிரூபித்திருக்கின்றன.

தாய்ப்பால் கொடுப்பது மார்பகப் புற்றுநோய், கருப்பைப் புற்றுநோய், நீரிழிவு, குழந்தை பெற்றெடுத்த பிறகான மனச்சோர்வுகள் போன்றவற்றிலிருந்து தாய்மார்களைப் பாதுகாக்கிறது. குழந்தைப் பேற்றுக்குப் பிறகு மாதவிடாய் ஏற்படுவதை, கருப்பையில் கருமுட்டை உருவாவதைத் தாமதப்படுத்துகிறது. தாய்ப்பால் கொடுப்பதால் ஆக்ஸிடோசின் ஹார்மோன் சுரக்கிறது. அதனால், தாயின் கர்ப்பப்பை எளிதாகச் சுருங்கி ரத்தப்போக்கைக் குறைப்பதுடன், கர்ப்பப்பை மீண்டும் அதன் பழைய நிலையை அடைய உதவுகிறது. பதற்றம், மன அழுத்தம், எதிர்மறை மனநிலை, ரத்த அழுத்தத்தைக் குறைக்கிறது.

குழந்தைகளுக்குத் தாய்ப்பால் கொடுப்பது தொடர்பாக 123 நாடுகளில் ஆய்வுசெய்த யுனிசெஃபின் ஊட்டச்சத்துப் பிரிவு, 95% குழந்தைகளுக்குத் தாய்ப்பால் எப்போதும் கிடைப்பதாகச் சொல்கிறது. குறைந்த வருமானம், நடுத்தர வருமானம் உள்ள நாடுகளில் 4% குழந்தைகளுக்கும், அதிக வருமானம் உள்ள நாடுகளில் 21% குழந்தைகளுக்கும் தாய்ப்பால் கிடைக்கவேயில்லை. ஒவ்வொரு நாட்டிலும் தனித்தனியாக மேற்கொண்ட ஆய்வில், பணக்கார நாடுகளில் ஏழை மக்களும், ஏழை அல்லது நடுத்தர நாடுகளில் வருமானம் உள்ளவர்களும் தாய்ப்பால் கொடுப்பதைத் தவிர்ப்பதாகவும் தெரியவந்துள்ளது.

இந்தியாவில், பிறந்த ஒருமணி நேரத்தில் 42% குழந்தைகளுக்குத்தான் தாய்ப்பால் கிடைக்கிறது. 55% குழந்தைகளே 0-6 மாதம் வரை தாய்ப்பால் மட்டும் குடிக்கிறார்கள். தாய்ப்பால் கிடைத்தால் ஆண்டுக்கு ஒரு லட்சம் குழந்தைகளை, குறிப்பாக வயிற்றுப்போக்கினாலும் நிமோனியாவினாலும் பலியாகாமல் காப்பாற்ற முடியும்.

தாய்ப்பால் கொடுக்க இயலாமை

குழந்தை பெற்ற அனைவராலும் தாய்ப்பால் கொடுக்க இயலாது என்கிற உண்மையை நாம் ஏற்றுக்கொள்ள வேண்டும். பாதியில் நிறுத்துதல்: மார்புக் காம்பில் புண், வெடிப்பு, ரத்தம் வருதல், தாங்க முடியாத வலி, மார்பில் தொற்று ஏற்படுதல், சீழ் உருவாதல், போதுமான பால் இல்லாமை, தொடர்ச்சியாகப் பால் வருவதில் சிக்கல், பல மணி நேரம் குழந்தையைப் பிரிந்திருக்க வேண்டிய பணிச்சூழல் உள்ளிட்ட காரணங்களால் குறுகிய காலத்திலேயே தாய்ப்பால் கொடுப்பதைச் சிலர் நிறுத்துகிறார்கள்.

கொடுக்கக் கூடாது: கதிர்வீச்சு சிகிச்சை பெறுகிறவர்கள், தீவிரத் தொற்று, காசநோய் உள்ளவர்கள், குறிப்பிட்ட சில உடல், மன நோய்களுக்காக மருந்து சாப்பிடுகிறவர்கள், கீமோதெரபி எடுக்கிறவர்கள், போதைப்பொருள், மதுவுக்கு அடிமையானவர்கள் தாய்ப்பால் கொடுக்கக் கூடாது. கொடுக்க முடியாது: பால் கொடுக்கும் ஆவல் இருந்தாலும் பால் சுரக்கத் தூண்டுகின்ற சுரப்பி (prolactin) குறைவாக இருப்பவர்கள், பால் சுரக்கும் திசுக்கள் (Glandular tissue) போதுமான அளவு வளர்ச்சி பெறாதவர்கள், அறுவைச் சிகிச்சை மூலமாக மார்பளவு குறைக்கப்பட்டிருப்பவர்கள் பால் கொடுக்க முடியாது. பால் கொடுப்பதால் பாலியல் வன்கொடுமை உள்ளிட்ட முந்தைய கொடூரங்கள் நினைவூட்டப்படும் என்றால் அவர்களாலும் முடியாது.

இயலாமையின் உளவியல் தாக்கம்

தாய்ப்பால் கொடுக்க முன்கூட்டியே முடிவெடுத்து, அதை வெற்றிகரமாக நிறைவேற்றியவர்களுக்கு, குழந்தை பிறந்த பிறகான மனச்சோர்வு குறைவாக இருப்பதை ஆய்வுகள் நிரூபித்துள்ளன. தாய்ப்பால் கொடுக்கும் ஆசை தடைபடும்போது தீவிரமான உளவியல் தாக்கம் ஏற்படுகிறது. தாய்ப்பால் சுரப்பதிலும், குழந்தை பால் குடிப்பதிலும் சிரமம் ஏற்பட்டு, மருத்துவர்களும் பெரியவர்களும் சொன்ன பல்வேறு வழிமுறைகளையும் செய்துபார்த்த பிறகும் தீர்வு கிடைக்காதபோது, தாய் முற்றிலும் சோர்ந்துபோகிறார். பால் கிடைக்காமல் தன் குழந்தை அழும்போதும், குழந்தைக்குத் தேவையான அளவு பால் சுரக்காதபோதும் கவலையும் விரக்தியும் மனச்சோர்வை அதிகரிக்கின்றன.

அரசாங்கமும் தொண்டு நிறுவனங்களும் மருத்துவர்களும் தாய்ப்பாலின் முக்கியத்துவத்தை அறிவுறுத்துகிற அதே வேளையில், தாய்ப்பால் கொடுப்பதில் உள்ள சிக்கல்களையும், கொடுக்க இயலாமல் துயருறுகிறவர்கள் தாங்களாக மீண்டுவருவதற்கான வழிமுறைகளையும் கற்றுக்கொடுக்க வேண்டும். பெண்களைச் சங்கடப்படுத்துகின்ற சமூகத்தின் மனப்பான்மையை மாற்ற, தாய்ப்பால் கொடுக்க இயலாததால் ஏற்படும் உளவியல் பிரச்சினைகளைச் சொல்லி அறிவூட்ட வேண்டும். உடல், மன, மருத்துவ மற்றும் தனிப்பட்ட காரணங்களால் தாய்ப்பால் கொடுக்க இயலாதவர்களின் முடிவை நாம் மதிப்பது, தாயின் மனநலனை மேம்படுத்தும், உடல்நலனை உறுதிப்படுத்தும், குழந்தைகளை ஆரோக்கியமாக வளர்க்க உதவும்.

பன்னிரண்டாவது ஒலிம்பிக் பந்தயத்துக்காக ஃபின்லாந்தின் தலைநகரம் ஹெலின்ஸ்கி 1940-ம் ஆண்டு தயாராகிக்கொண்டிருந்தது. அத்துடன் ஐரோப்பா இரண்டாம் உலகப் போருக்கு ஆயத்தமாகிக்கொண்டிருந்தது. இந்தச் சமயத்தில், இந்தியாவில் தலைமைத் துணைக் கணக்காளராக இருந்த நாகேந்திர நாத் சென்னுக்கு, காலனிய அரசு நிர்வாக வலைப்பின்னல் வழியாக ஒரு செய்தி வந்து சேர்ந்தது. பிரிட்டிஷ் இந்தியாவின் சார்பாக ஒலிம்பிக் போட்டிக்குச் செல்ல அவரது 15 வயது மகள் இலா தேர்ந்தெடுக்கப்பட்டிருக்கும் தகவல்தான் அது.

நாகேந்திர நாத் சென்னுக்கு அது முற்றிலும் எதிர்பாராத செய்தி ஒன்றும் அல்ல. கல்கத்தாவைச் சேர்ந்த ஆங்கில, வங்க செய்தித்தாள்களின் விளையாட்டுப் பக்கங்களில் தடகள வீராங்கனை இலா பெற்ற வெற்றிகள் தொடர்ந்து இடம்பிடித்திருந்த நேரம் அது. தனது ஆறு குழந்தைகளில் மூத்தவரான இலாவின் விளையாட்டு வாழ்க்கையில் நாகேந்திர சென் தனிப்பட்ட வகையில் மிகவும் நம்பிக்கை வைத்திருந்தார். வங்கத்தைச் சேர்ந்த ஜாதிய ஜுபா சங்கா என்ற விளையாட்டு கிளப் சார்பில் 1937, 1938 எனத் தொடர்ந்து வந்த ஆண்டுகளில் நடத்தப்பட்ட பெண்களுக்கான ஜூனியர் சாம்பியன்ஷிப் டைட்டில்களையும் வென்றார். உள்ளூர் செய்தித்தாள்கள், இதழ்கள் பலவும் ஒலிம்பிக் அழைப்பைப் பெற்ற முதல் வங்கப் பெண் என்று விவரித்தபோது, வங்க வீடுகளிலும் அவர் பெயர் பிரபலமானது. ஆனால், அதிகாரபூர்வமான அரசுக் கடிதம் எதுவும் அதற்குச் சான்றாக இருப்பதாகத் தெரியவில்லை. இரண்டாம் உலகப் போரை முன்னிட்டு, காலனிய நிர்வாகம் ஒலிம்பிக் விளையாட்டு ரத்துசெய்யப்படும் என்பதை முன்கூட்டியே உணர்ந்திருக்கக்கூடும்.

ஐந்து ஆண்டுகளுக்கு முன்னர் இந்தியாவில் உள்ள பெண் தடகள வீராங்கனைகள் குறித்து எனது ஆய்வைத் தொடங்கியபோதுதான், இலாவின் பெயரை முதல் முறையாகக் கேள்விப்பட்டேன். இந்தக் கோடையில் கரோனாவின் இரண்டாவது அலை ஏற்படுத்திய பாதிப்புக்குப் பின்னர் அவர் பெயர் என் மனத்தில் மீண்டும் தலைதூக்கியது. திரும்ப இணையத்துக்குச் சென்று எனது தேடலைத் தொடங்கினேன். மந்திரம்போல அவரது குடும்பத்தினர் எங்கே இருக்கிறார்கள் என்ற தகவல் எனக்குக் கிடைத்தது. அவரது மகன் கல்கத்தாவிலும் அவரது பேரன் அமெரிக்காவிலும் இருக்கிறார்கள் என்ற தகவல் கிடைத்தது.

வங்கத்தைப் பொறுத்தவரை 1940-கள் மிகவும் சேதாரத்தை ஏற்படுத்திய தசாப்தமாகும். வங்கப் பஞ்சத்தில் 30 லட்சம் பேர் மரணமடைந்தனர். இது அரசுக் கணக்கு. இலாவின் வாழ்க்கையையும் அரசியலையும் வங்கப் பஞ்சம்தான் வடிவமைத்தது. 1942-ல் பெத்தூன் பள்ளியில் இன்டர்மீடியட் பரீட்சையில் முதல் வகுப்பில் இலா தேறிப் பட்டம் பெற்றார். பெத்தூன் கல்லூரியில் சேர்ந்து வங்க மொழியில் இளங்கலையில் சேர்ந்தார்.

“பெத்தூன் கல்லூரியில் சேர்ந்தபோது, நான் மாணவிகள் கமிட்டியில் சேர்ந்து மார்க்சியம் குறித்து விவாதிக்கத் தொடங்கினேன். இதை முதலில் ரகசியமாகச் செய்தோம். படிப்படியாக எனது நிவாரண சேவைப் பணியின் வழியாகக் கட்சி ஊழியராக மாறினேன்’’ என்று கவிதா பஞ்சாபி என்ற ஆய்வாளர் எழுதியுள்ள நூலில் இலா பகிர்ந்துள்ளார்.

1944-ல் இலாவின் தந்தை, தன் மகளுக்கு ஜமீன்தார் குடும்பத்தைச் சேர்ந்த ராமேந்திரநாத் மித்ரா என்ற மாப்பிள்ளையைப் பார்த்தார். இந்திய கம்யூனிஸ்ட் கட்சிக்காக வேலை பார்த்த அவர், வேறு வேலைகளில் ஈடுபடக் கூடாது என்பதில் உறுதியாக இருந்தார். இலா தன்னை ஒரு பெண்ணியராக அடையாளம் கண்டுகொண்டதால், தனக்குப் பார்த்த மாப்பிள்ளையின் அரசியல் ஈடுபாட்டைத் தெரிந்துகொண்டு திருமணத்துக்குச் சம்மதித்தார். தேசப் பிரிவினையின்போது இலாவின் மாமியார் தனது சொத்துகளை முன்னிட்டு, கிழக்கு வங்கத்திலேயே (அப்போதைய பாகிஸ்தானில் இருந்த பகுதி) தங்க முடிவுசெய்தார்.

அதுவரை சந்தால் குடியானவர்கள் அறுவடையில் பாதியை நில உரிமையாளர்களுக்குக் கொடுத்துவந்தனர். ஆனால், மூன்றில் ஒரு பங்கை மட்டுமே நிலஉரிமையாளர்கள் பெற வேண்டுமென்று இலாவும் அவரது கணவரும் போராடினார்கள். தேபகா (மூன்றில் இரண்டு பங்கு) என்று சொல்லப்படும் இயக்கத்தின் மையக் கோரிக்கை இதுதான். பஞ்சத்தின் நினைவு தொடர்ந்த காலத்தில் வறுமையையும் பசியையும் எதிர்த்துப் போராடுவதற்கு இந்தக் கூலி உயர்வு உதவும். இலாவும் ராமேந்திர நாத்தும் குடியானவர்களோடு வாழத் தொடங்கினர். 1950-ல் ஜனவரி மாதம் 5-ம் தேதி நச்சோலில் நடந்த போலீஸ் தேடலில் நான்கு காவல் துறையினர் இறக்க நேரிட்டது. இந்தச் சம்பவம் தொடர்பில் பழிவாங்கும் வகையில் குடியானவர்களுடன் நச்சோல் ரயில் நிலையத்திலிருந்து இலா தப்பிக்க முயன்றபோது கைதுசெய்யப்பட்டார்.

நச்சோல் தானாவில் இலா நிர்வாணமாகத் தனிச்சிறையில் அடைக்கப்பட்டு, உணவும் நீரும் கொடுக்கப்படாமல் வைக்கப்பட்டிருந்தார். இரவில் வந்த துணை ஆய்வாளரும் பிற போலீஸ்காரர்களும் அவரது சிறை அறைக்குள் நுழைந்து ரைபிள்களைக் கொண்டு ரத்தம் சொட்டச் சொட்டத் தாக்கினார்கள். அந்த நள்ளிரவில் துணை ஆய்வாளரின் குடியிருப்புக்கு அழைத்துச் செல்லப்பட்டு, அவரது இரண்டு கால்களும் நொறுக்கப்பட்டன.

இதுபோன்ற பெருங்கொடுமைகள் நான்கு நாட்களாகத் தொடர்ந்தன. கடைசியில் கடும் காய்ச்சலால் பீடிக்கப்பட்ட நிலையில், நவாப்கஞ்ச் சிறைக்குக் கொண்டுசெல்லப்பட்டார். சிறை வார்டனாக இருந்த ஓ.சி.ரஹ்மான், இலாவுடன் கல்கத்தா பல்கலைக்கழகத்தில் படித்தவர். பஞ்ச கால நிவாரணப் பணிகளில் சந்தித்தவர். அவர் ஒரு மருத்துவரை இலாவுக்குச் சிகிச்சை செய்வதற்காக ஏற்பாடுசெய்தார். கொடும் காவல் சித்ரவதையைத் தாண்டி சிறையிலிருந்து வெளியே வந்து, 1956-ல் தன்னால் மீண்டும் நடக்க முடிந்ததற்குக் காரணம் தனது தடகளப் பயிற்சிதான் என்று கூறியிருக்கிறார். அவர் சிறையில் அடைந்த சித்ரவதையின் தடம், அவரை நிரந்தரமாகக் கெந்திக் கெந்தி நடக்க வைத்தது.

1951-ல் இலா, ராஜ்சாஹி நீதிமன்றத்தில் தனது வாக்குமூலத்தை அளித்தார். தனக்கு நடந்த பாலியல் வல்லுறவை ஒரு பெண் பகிரங்கமாக விவரித்த துணைக் கண்டத்தின் முதல் சம்பவமாக இருக்கலாம். இலாவின் வாழ்க்கை வரலாற்றை எழுதிய பேகம், இந்த வல்லுறவு சம்பவத்தை வெளியிடுவதற்கு இலாவுக்குச் சங்கடம் இருந்ததாகவும் இந்திய கம்யூனிஸ்ட் கட்சிதான் அவரை தைரியப்படுத்தி, அந்த வாக்குமூலத்தை கிழக்கு வங்கம் முழுக்கப் பிரசுரமாக விநியோகித்ததாகவும் கூறுகிறார்.

சாட்சியங்கள் இல்லாத நிலையில், இலாவின் மேல் கொலைக்குற்றம் நிரூபணம் ஆகவில்லை. ஏழு ஆண்டுகள் சிறைத்தண்டனை பெற்றார். அவரது வாக்குமூலம் காரணமாக நீதிபதியும் சிறை அதிகாரிகளும் அவருக்குக் கருணை காட்டியிருக்க வேண்டும்.

1956-ல் மருத்துவமனையிலிருந்து நேரடியாக விடுதலையான இலா, தனது முயற்சியின் காரணமாக முதுகலைப் பட்டப் படிப்பை முடித்து, ஐந்து ஆண்டுகளுக்கு விரிவுரையாளராக சிவநாத் சாஸ்திரி கல்லூரியில் பணியை ஏற்றார். மாணிக்டாலா தொகுதியில் போட்டியிட்டு சட்டமன்ற உறுப்பினராக ஆனார். அந்தத் தொகுதியின் சட்டமன்ற உறுப்பினராக 1977 வரை இருந்தார். பொது விநியோகத்தில் உணவுகளை வழங்கும் காத்யா அந்தோலன் இயக்கத்தில் தீவிரமாக ஈடுபட்டார். துரதிர்ஷ்டவசமாக வங்கத்தில் இடதுசாரிகள் ஆட்சி அதிகாரத்தைப் பிடித்த பிறகு, இவருக்கு போட்டியிட வாய்ப்பே வழங்கப்படவில்லை.

நவீன ஒலிம்பிக் விளையாட்டுப் போட்டிகளின் நிறுவனரான பியர்ரி டி கோபர்டின் கூறியதுபோல, வாழ்க்கையைப் போலவே ஒலிம்பிக்கில் பங்குபெறுவது தான் முக்கியமானது; வெற்றிபெறுவது அல்ல. அவர் சொல்லியதுபோலவே ஒலிம்பிக் போட்டியைத் தவறவிட்ட இலா, வாழ்க்கையைத் தீவிரமாக வாழ்ந்தவர். வங்க மக்களின் மனித கௌரவத்தைக் காப்பாற்றுவதற்காகப் பணிசெய்தவர் அவர்.1996 வரை வங்கதேசத்துக்குத் திரும்பாமல் இருந்த இலா, புதிய தேசத்தின் 25-வது ஆண்டு கொண்டாட்டத்துக்கு அரசு விருந்தினராக வந்து பங்கேற்றார்.

India has not released its Consumption Expenditure Survey (CES) data since 2011-12. Normally a CES is conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSO) every five years. But the CES of 2017-18 (already conducted a year late) was not made public by the Government of India. Now, we hear that a new CES is likely to be conducted in 2021-22, the data from which will probably not be available before end-2022.

Meanwhile, we know that the economy has been slowing for nine quarters prior to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Unemployment had reached a 45-year high in 2017-18, as revealed by NSO’s Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS).

Sufficient to estimate change

India’s labour force surveys, including the five-yearly Employment-Unemployment Rounds from 1973-4 to 2011-12, have also collected consumption expenditure of households. The PLFS has maintained that tradition. While the PLFS’s questions on consumption expenditure are not as detailed as those of the CES, they are sufficient for us to estimate changes in consumption on a consistent basis across time. It enables any careful researcher to estimate the incidence of poverty (i.e., the share in the total population of those below the poverty line), as well as the total number of persons below poverty. That is exactly what we do in thetable.

There is a clear trajectory of the incidence of poverty falling from 1973 to 2012. In fact, since India began collecting data on poverty, the incidence of poverty has always fallen, consistently. It was 54.9% in 1973-4; 44.5% in 1983-84; 36% in 1993-94 and 27.5% in 2004-05. This was in accordance with the Lakdawala poverty line (which was lower than the Tendulkar poverty line), named after a distinguished economist, then a member of the Planning Commission.

Methodology

In 2011, it was decided in the Planning Commission, that the national poverty line will be raised in accordance with the recommendations of an expert group chaired by the late Suresh Tendulkar (then professor of Economics at the Delhi School of Economics). That is the poverty line we use in estimating poverty in thetable. As it happens, this poverty line was comparable at the time to the international poverty line (estimated by the World Bank), of $1.09(now raised to $1.90 to account for inflation) person per day.

Based on the Tendulkar poverty line, the poverty estimates for 2004-05 and 2011-12 are to be found in the Planning Commission’s own estimates using the CES of those years. Hence, we have extended the 2011-12 poverty line for each State and used the consumption expenditure reported by the PLFS to estimate a consistent poverty head count ratio (i.e., incidence of poverty in the population) as well as the absolute number of the poor. We feel confident about using the PLFS, because in the absence of CES data, the PLFS can be used to estimate the incidence of poverty. It also collects the household monthly per capita consumption expenditure data based on the Mixed Recall Period methodology. Similar to the CES, the PLFS (PLFS annual report, 2019-20, page 6) also asks the household questions about expenses on health, clothing and bedding, education, footwear and consumer durables for a 365 day recall period — prior to the day of the survey; but for non-durable consumption goods/services — including expenses on food, housing and conveyance, etc. — its question expects a recall period of 30 days prior to the day of survey. We naturally updated the Tendulkar poverty line, using the Consumer Price Index for each State to 2019- 20, to arrive at the estimate for the last year before COVID-19.

An urban and rural rise

What is stunning is that for the first time in India’s history of estimating poverty, there is a rise in the incidence of poverty since 2011-12. The important point is that this is consistent with the NSO’s CES data for 2017-18 that was leaked data. The leaked data showed that rural consumption between 2012 and 2018 had fallen by 8%, while urban consumption had risen by barely 2%. Since the majority of India’s population (certainly over 65%) is rural, poverty in India is also predominantly rural. Remarkably, by 2019-20, poverty had increased significantly in both the rural and urban areas, but much more so in rural areas (from 25% to 30%).

It is also for the first time since the estimation of poverty began in India on a consistent basis, that the absolute number of poor has risen: from 217 million in 2012 to 270 million in 2019-20 in rural areas; and from 53 million to 71 million in the urban areas; or a total increase of the absolute poor of about 70 million.

It is important here to recall two facts: between 1973 and 1993, the absolute number of poor had remained constant (at about 320 million poor), despite a significant increase in India’s total population. Between 1993 and 2004, the absolute number of poor fell by a marginal number (18 million) from 320 million to 302 million, during a period when the GDP growth rate had picked up after the economic reforms.

It is for the first time in India’s history since the CES began that we have seen an increase in the absolute numbers of the poor, between 2012-13 and 2019-20.

The second fact is that for the first time ever, between 2004-05 and 2011-12, the number of the poor fell, and that too by a staggering 133 million, or by over 19 million per year. This was accounted for by what has come to be called India’s ‘dream run’ of growth: over 2004 and 2014, the GDP growth rate had averaged 8% per annum — a 10-year run that was not sustained thereafter. By contrast, not only has the incidence of poverty increased since then, but the absolute increase in poverty is totally unprecedented.

The contributory factors

The reasons for increased poverty since 2013 are not far to seek. While the economy maintained some growth momentum till 2015, the monumental blunder of demonetisation followed by a poorly planned and hurriedly introduced Goods and Services Tax, both delivered body blows to the unorganised sector and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. The economic slowdown followed. None of the four engines of growth was firing after that. Private investment fell from 31% inherited by the new government, to 28% of GDP by 2019-20. Public expenditure was constrained by a silent fiscal crisis. Exports, which had never fallen in absolute dollar terms for a quarter century since 1991, actually fell below the 2013-14 level ($315 billion) for five years. Consumption stagnated and household savings rates fell. Joblessness increased to a 45-year high by 2017-18 (by the usual status), and youth (15-29 years of age) saw unemployment triple from 6% to 18% between 2012 and 2018. Real wages did not increase for casual or regular workers over the same period, hardly surprising when job seekers were increasing but jobs were not at anywhere close to that rate. Hence, consumer expenditure fell, and poverty increased.

Poverty is expected to rise further during the COVID-19 pandemic after the economy has contracted.

Santosh Mehrotra has recently edited ‘Reviving Jobs: An Agenda for Growth, 2020’. Jajati Keshari Parida is Assistant Professor of Economics at the Central University of Punjab, Bathinda

The Bihar government recently announced 33% horizontal reservation for women in State engineering and medical colleges. While reservation for Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) is referred to as vertical reservation, horizontal reservation refers to the equal opportunity provided to other categories of beneficiaries, such as women, veterans, the transgender community, and individuals with disabilities, cutting through the vertical categories.

Bihar at present has 60% reservation in the State higher educational institutions along the six vertical categories (SCs, STs, EWS and so on). The newly announced reservation for women in engineering and medical seats will not be in addition to this; it will instead be distributed across all the vertical categories, including the non-reserved 40% seats open to all. For example, if an engineering college has 100 reserved seats for STs, 33 of those seats will have to be filled with ST women. Article 15(3) of the Constitution allows governments to make special provisions for women and children.

Dropping out of the workforce

This initiative should be welcomed and adopted across sectors, departments, and States given that India’s female labour force participation (FLFP) rate is consistently declining and is worryingly low. World Bank data show that the FLFP came down to 21% in 2019 from 31.79% in 2005.

As per the Bihar Economic Survey 2019-20, the State’s FLFP rate was abysmal compared to the all-India average. Only 6.4% and 3.9% women were employed in the urban and rural areas of Bihar compared to the all-India figures of 20.4% and 24.6% respectively. The FLFP rate needs to be treated cautiously though as it doesn’t take into account unpaid work (majorly performed by women) or the role played by social barriers like caste in blocking employment opportunities for women like owning a shop.

Patriarchal control of women and systemic gender discrimination cannot be defeated by government intervention alone; State welfare schemes can go a long way in challenging them. The Bihar government needs to work towards reducing the female and male school dropout rate and ensure quality education at the primary and secondary level. In addition, initiatives like reservation of seats, when implemented properly, could become an important driver for improving the FLFP.

Improving representation

In the last three decades, Bihar has implemented various initiatives to empower women and improve their representation in various fields. When Lalu Prasad was the Chief Minister in 1992, Bihar had announced two consecutive days of menstrual leave for women employees in government services. In 2006, under Nitish Kumar, Bihar became the first State to reserve 50% seats for women in Panchayati Raj institutions even though the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution, which came into force in 1993, mandated only one-third seats for them. This was later imitated by several other States such as Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Chhattisgarh.

In 2013, the Bihar government made a provision for 50% reservation for women in cooperative societies and reserved 35% seats for them in police recruitment. The second initiative led to a swift jump in the number of women officers in the police department to 25.3% in 2020, more than double the national average of 10.3%, from 3.3% in 2015. In 2016, the government extended the 35% reservation for women to all government jobs in Bihar for which direct recruitment is made.

In 2006, a scheme called the Mukhyamantri Balika Cycle Yojana was launched for Class 9 and 10 girl students. This was India’s first scaled up conditional cash transfer programme for secondary education of girls. The enrolment of girl students went up after this scheme. The Bihar government also provides Rs. 50,000 in installments to girl students to support their studies and other needs till graduation under the Mukhyamantri Kanya Utthan Yojana. This is an incentive-based scheme to encourage girls to complete education and delay marriage. According to the National Family Health Survey-5, the State’s literacy rate among girl children rose to 61.1% in 2019-20 from 56.9% in 2015-16.

More jobs for women

While the Bihar government has taken some laudable steps for the empowerment of women, the low female literacy rate and FLFP rate are of concern. One of the important factors for the low FLFP rate is the lack of employment opportunities for women after matriculation and graduation. The India Human Development Survey-II found that women with low levels of education and from rural areas are relatively more active in the labour market compared to women with middle or high school education. Therefore, the Bihar government needs to ensure that women don’t fall out of the labour market as they become more educationally qualified.

One way this can be done is by filling up pending vacancies in the health sector, police force, teaching and other government departments as at least 35% of these posts will go to women. The government should also do away with hiring workers on contract and make all the current contractual workers permanent.

Evidence points out that increasing women’s participation in the workforce to the level of men boosts the economy. In light of this, it is important for the government to make more and more jobs available for women. The Bihar government should also extend the engineering and medical quota for women to all institutions of higher education, including private colleges and universities. Further, the quota allotted to them can be increased to 40-45%, if not 50%, and the category can be renamed as ‘women and transgender persons’. Other State governments and the Union government should follow the Bihar government’s lead and introduce horizontal quota for women (and in addition, for transgender persons) in higher educational institutions as well as State employment as these measures will go a long way in reducing gender disparity in the country.

United States President Joe Biden executed a bold diplomatic outreach to the Indo-Pacific region last month through carefully choreographed visits of his three top officials — Deputy Secretary of State Wendy R. Sherman, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken. This is part of a deliberate strategic re-focus, away from the 20 years of Afghanistan and Iraq and towards maritime Asia, where COVID-19, climate change and China are the compelling challenges.

Assessing what the three American dignitaries sought and actually achieved is instructive in order to appreciate the impressive sweep of diplomacy and military strength of the world’s top power, the United States. Their discussions would surely mould the geopolitical equations in the region.

In East Asia and Oman

Ms. Sherman’s visit (July 19-27) was probably the most complex since it covered not only Japan, South Korea and Mongolia but also China. Throughout her trip, she reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to working with allies and partners for the promotion of peace and prosperity and upholding a ‘rules-based order’, the code word critical of China’s behaviour. Her discussions with Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Mori Takeo, covered not only the present state of the Japan-U.S. alliance but also other issues including Myanmar and COVID-19. In addition, she participated in a trilateral meeting involving Japan and South Korea, perhaps in a bid to smoothen tensions afflicting the two east Asian neighbours.

By visiting Ulaanbaatar, Ms. Sherman became the highest U.S. dignitary to visit Mongolia since 2016. Despite its close relationship with Beijing, Mongolia looks for devices to assert its independence. So, the opportunity to discuss its needs and concerns with the new administration was valuable. In Tianjin, China, she held discussions with Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng, her counterpart, and was also received by Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Her main mission was to convey that the U.S. welcomed competition but did not seek confrontation with China. She also discussed forthrightly the dismal human rights situation in Xinjiang and logistics for a possible Biden-Xi Jinping meeting at the G20 summit in Rome in October.

Southeast Asian dynamics

The visit by Mr. Austin (July 23-30) covering three important ASEAN member-states — Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines — turned out to be the most productive in that it reiterated the necessity for a U.S. military presence in the region. As the Pentagon chief, Mr. Austin is heard with attention, particularly when he speaks with the candour of a veteran general. “Beijing’s claim to the vast majority of the South China Sea has no basis in international law,” he aptly asserted, while delivering the Fullerton Lecture on July 27 (https://bit.ly/3CkTeMT). He listed China’s other objectionable actions, including “aggression against India”. And then he sent out the key signal to Beijing: “We will not flinch when our interests are threatened. Yet we do not seek confrontation.”

This seems to have resonated, as Mr. Austin’s discussions with leaders of the three countries went off exceptionally well. In a joint statement, Singapore and the U.S. agreed that America’s presence in the region is “vital for its peace, prosperity and stability”. The U.S. side appreciated Singapore’s logistical support to U.S. military aircraft and vessels (https://bit.ly/3xmjPW7), while Singapore benefits from the arrangement of an air force fighter training detachment hosted in Guam as well as new training facilities inside the U.S. Singapore could modulate its current inclination to move closer to China.

Mr. Austin encouraged Vietnam to develop closer defence cooperation with the U.S. A new memorandum of understanding was signed to resolve the war legacy issues by creating a database to accelerate the search for those still missing in action (MIA). Mr. Austin’s visits to Singapore and Vietnam will be followed shortly by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. The Philippines leg produced a notable result as Manila agreed to full restoration of the Visiting Forces Agreement which provides the legal foundation for the U.S. military presence in that country.

In South Asia and Kuwait

Mr. Blinken’s trip to Delhi and Kuwait (July 26-29; https://bit.ly/3yq8Yvt) drew attention for its positive outcomes. The India visit was more in the nature of a consultative, confirmatory dialogue rather than one that results in signing of new agreements. His discussions with the Prime Minister, the National Security Adviser and the External Affairs Minister brought out clearly that the areas of convergence between the two nations are expanding and the areas of divergence are shrinking. His repeated observation that the friendship with India is one of the closest that the U.S. has, was music to Indian ears.

On Afghanistan, the proximity of perceptions was emphasised, although this did not conceal the differences in their perspectives. On the Indo-Pacific, however, the convergence was clear, with the two Foreign Ministers agreeing to cooperate on a range of geopolitical and geo-economic issues without uttering the “C” word even once in their smoothly-managed joint press conference. By clarifying that the Quad was not “a military alliance”, Mr. Blinken spoke the truth, tipping his hat to India’s strategic autonomy. He defined the Quad as four like-minded countries “coming together to work collectively … on regional challenges, while reinforcing international rules and values”.

The takeaways

Together, what do the three visits signal? First, that America’s China policy and the Rest of the Indo-Pacific policy will run in tandem, with inner consistency ensured by Mr. Biden. Second, Washington maintains a tough attitude towards Beijing, but it desires to keep the doors open for dialogue. The relationship with China is marked by three characteristics — adversarial, competitive and cooperative — and is likely to stay that way. Third, the U.S. is willing to resist and counter China firmly, but with the full engagement of and contribution by the like-minded states of the region. Therefore, Mr. Austin’s exposition of “integrated deterrence”, defined as “using every military and non-military tool in our toolbox, in lock- step with our allies and partners....”, assumes significance.

In short, the U.S. is back and is willing to lead — but the region will have to seriously step up too and participate actively to maintain peace and prosperity. Asia can ill-afford to be a reticent bystander.

Rajiv Bhatia is Distinguished Fellow, Gateway House and a former Ambassador to Myanmar

As the pandemic broke, in aHarvard Business Reviewarticle of April 2020, Julie Shah, an AI researcher and a roboticist at MIT, and Neel Shah, a physician at a major hospital and a public health researcher at Harvard, perceived that this would be our most meaningful Big Data and analytics challenge yet. “We have the people. We have the data. We have the computational force. We need to deploy them now,” they wrote. In terms of the volume of data, COVID-19 is something like Alibaba’s cave. Many data scientists, statisticians, computer analysts, and epidemiologists got engaged in the fashionable exercise of predicting the trajectories of the number of cases and deaths, different waves of the pandemic and their peaks. Many of the predictions were contradictory in nature and were proved to be misleading eventually, although they were mostly done by academics of reputed universities and institutes. But why did such predictions fail?

A dubious track record

In a paper in theInternational Journal of Forecastingin August 2020, John P.A. Ioannidis, Sally Cripps, and Martin A. Tanner recalled that epidemic forecasting has a dubious track record. The failures became more prominent with COVID-19. They pointed out several important causes of the failure of such forecasting: poor data input, wrong modelling assumptions, high sensitivity of estimates, lack of incorporation of epidemiological features, poor past evidence on effects of available interventions, lack of transparency, errors, lack of determinacy, looking at only one or a few dimensions of the problem at hand, lack of expertise in crucial disciplines, selective reporting, etc.

The models used in most COVID-19 predictions were simple statistical models like regression or time series models, or standard epidemiological models such as SIR, SEIR, or their simple variants. These are well-studied and are also included in standard software packages. Thus, most COVID-19 data analysts didn’t do much beyond feeding the classified data on daily cases and deaths into the computer. Software immediately provided forecasts along with fancy graphs.

Each of these models depends on some underlying assumptions on the nature of the disease and the behaviour of the concerned community. The dynamics of a new and unknown disease, however, maybe far more complicated and unpredictable. And if the assumptions are not satisfied in reality, the predictions might become weird. The nature of COVID-19 was unknown from the beginning. Even now, there are many unknowns concerning the disease. New variants of the virus, effectiveness and coverage of the vaccines, etc. play important roles. So, which of the existing models is really ‘suitable’ for predicting COVID-19? It’s difficult to answer.

Quality of data

Although waves of data are available, official death tolls from COVID-19 are likely to be a “significant undercount”, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in May, estimating that the true figure of direct and indirect deaths in many countries “would truly be two to three times higher”. The WHO estimated double the reported COVID-19 deaths in the European region, having relatively reliable reporting systems, during 2020. An unknown but huge number of asymptomatic cases, inadequate and inefficient testing facilities, overwhelmed hospital infrastructure, social stigma, etc. may be some of the reasons. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the U.S. even issued an official warning about the quality of data: “Counting exact numbers of COVID-19 cases is not possible because COVID-19 can cause mild illness, symptoms might not appear immediately, there are delays in reporting and testing, not everyone who is infected gets tested or seeks medical care, and there are differences in how completely states and territories report their cases.” CDC even uses an ‘ensemble’ forecast which combines many independently developed forecasts into one to improve prediction.

Thus, almost everywhere, the reality of COVID-19 predictions is restricted to forecasting official figures based on official data, using some possible wrong model. The dimensions of errors are unknown both in the model and data. Policymakers may still need some such predictions to plan for healthcare infrastructure. But it’s unclear why many academics, who should understand that they’re engaged in useless exercises, are busy in the prediction business. The horror or false sense of security caused through these wrong predictions is undesirable.

In their 2020 paper, Ioannidis, Cripps, and Tanner opined that some, but not all, of the problems of epidemiological forecasting can be fixed. Careful modelling of predictive distributions rather than focusing on point estimates, considering multiple dimensions of impact, and continuously reappraising models based on their validated performance may help.

Atanu Biswas is Professor of Statistics at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata

Police verification and security clearances for passport or government job applicants are a matter of routine in most parts of the country. In Kashmir, where the police have now issued a circular aimed at gathering details and denying security clearance to those involved in throwing stones and joining street protests in the past, the exercise may not be out of the ordinary, but it could result in serious prejudice to the aspirations of many young men and women. The circular, which asks CID Special Branch field units to ensure that any subject’s involvement in law-and-order incidents and related crimes be specifically looked into, and also to collect digital evidence from the records of police and security forces, suggests that the administration is quite serious about preventing those with a likely link to protests in the past from either entering government service or travelling abroad. Reports suggest that the official list of street protesters swelled between 2008 and 2017 to include nearly 20,000 people. On the face of it, the decision to subject applicants for passports and jobs to scrutiny is not illegal. Under Section 6(2) of the Passports Act, 1967, passports can be denied to applicants for various reasons, including their likelihood of engaging in activities prejudicial to the country’s sovereignty and integrity, or detrimental to its security. Further, those convicted in the preceding five years, or against whom proceedings are pending before any criminal court, are also candidates for refusal. There is legal recourse for those affected, as the Act allows them to approach the trial court for a ‘No Objection’ certificate to get a passport.

In the backdrop of the Union government’s outreach to revive political activity preparatory to elections, it is quite incongruous that such a far-reaching measure that would dampen the hopes and aspirations of thousands of people is being pursued. The Government’s position is that the alteration of the status of J&K in August 2019 has ushered in a new era of development and prosperity, and that it is time to strengthen grassroots democracy. It was as a part of this process that Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited leaders of the Union Territory’s political parties in June for a discussion. Despite their obvious disappointment that the restoration of statehood is likely to be considered only after polls to the Legislative Assembly, the parley did create some cautious optimism about a fresh political process. Were the administration to pursue this circular zealously, there is a danger that it may revive the sort of alienation among the youth that led to the stone-pelting incidents in 2008 and 2010, and the wave of disaffection following the killing of militant leader Burhan Wani. When all efforts should be directed towards building on current gains, nothing ought to be done to make those still harbouring, for whatever reason, a sense of betrayal feel that some fresh collective punishment is in the offing.

Contrary to popular belief, the U.S. is not getting out of Afghanistan a defeated nation. It stayed there as long as it needed to, as President Joe Biden stated, achieving its objective “to degrade the terrorist threat to keep Afghanistan from becoming a base from which attacks could be continued against the United States.”

The U.S.’s exit from Afghanistan represents a fundamental shift in its strategic objectives. As Vanda Felbab-Brown observes in her blog dated April 15, 2021 inBrookings Institution, the U.S.’s decision is the right one. It is time for it to move on and focus on more important strategic priorities such as “threats from China, an aggressive Russia, North Korea, and Iran — as well as zoonotic pandemics”.

Stopping spread of communism

By exiting Afghanistan, the U.S. has left the problem of containing what remains of the Taliban’s brand of Islamic fundamentalism to its concerned neighbours. The most aggrieved by this exit will be the Afghans who, after enduring 20 years of conflict, were looking forward to better times, but are instead being abandoned by the U.S. This is what happened to the South Vietnamese when the U.S. withdrew from the Vietnam war in 1973. The U.S.’s seemingly messy exit then concealed a victory against global communism that two shrewd and ruthless men — President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger — conjured in just under four years between 1969 and 1973.

At the start of the big U.S. engagement in Vietnam following the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed by the U.S. Congress in August 1964, which authorised the President to deploy armed forces in Southeast Asia, there was a real fear among Americans that revolutionary communism, spearheaded by the Soviet Union and China, would take over one country after another in Asia and that Vietnam would be one more country to fall if not checked.

Fortunately for Nixon, soon after becoming the American President in 1969, the ideological differences between the Soviet Union and China came out in the open and led to a border dispute. It is here that Nixon saw his chance to drive them further apart by reaching out to China through Romania and Pakistan.

In her 2005 paper, ‘Nixon, Kissinger, and the “Soviet Card” in the U.S. Opening to China, 1971-1974,’ Evelyn Goh, citing declassified documents, wrote about how the U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger, in his first secret trip to Beijing in July 1971, assured Premier Zhou Enlai that the U.S. government “would gradually withdraw U.S. troops as the war in Vietnam ended and as relations with China improved”. The paper was published in the official journal of Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations,Diplomatic History.

Following up on Kissinger’s secret visit to China, Nixon went there in 1972 on his much publicised ‘the week that changed the world’ tour paving the way for a ‘safe’ U.S. exit from Vietnam in 1973. This was no small victory for Nixon. With China almost wholly on his side, the U.S.’s principal enemy, the Soviet Union, stood alone. This practically eliminated American fears of communism overrunning the world.

Drawing parallels

Something similar has happened in Afghanistan. With the kind of surveillance that the U.S. and its allies are able to mount on countries and individuals today, it is unlikely that the Taliban will, even if they wrest control of Afghanistan, be in a position to nurture another terrorist like Osama Bin Laden, as they have been accused of doing. It is this confidence, not frustration, that has enabled Mr. Biden to announce American military disengagement in Afghanistan.

The President of Pakistan, Gen. Yahya Khan, has refused to give an assurance that the Awami League leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, would not be executed after he has been tried by a military court for “high treason” [New Delhi, August 3]. He told the Teheran daily, Kyhan International, in an interview last week that Mr. Rehman “would be court-martialled and I cannot say whether or not he would be alive when the (National) Assembly meets.” Mr. Amir Taheri, who interviewed Gen. Yahya Khan in Rawalpindi, had asked him whether Sheikh Mujib would be “tried and possibly executed before the National Assembly is convened.” Although Gen. Yahya Khan would not give any exact date for the trail, Mr. Rehman would be tried before October, according to the time-table set for the implementation of the proposed constitutional measures in Pakistan. Gen. Yahya Khan only said: “The matter is in the hands of military justice.” He hoped that there would be a civilian government in Pakistan before the 2,500th anniversary of the Iranian monarchy, falling in October, “and in any case before the end of the current year.”

Just as Indian hockey’s Olympic tryst draws rightful attention in Tokyo, Virat Kohli’s men will don whites and play their Test series in England. The first Test commencing at Nottingham’s Trent Bridge on Wednesday will kick-start a five-match joust stretching all the way to September 14. Due to bio-bubble protocols and the World Test Championship final that India lost to New Zealand at Southampton on June 23, Kohli and company have been in England since June first week. Perhaps, this is the longest an Indian squad has stayed overseas prior to an opening Test and there was adequate time to get acclimatised. After the contest involving New Zealand, the players took a break, savoured the countryside, Euro and Wimbledon, and added zest to their Instagram accounts. They then reverted to the bubble and had a warm-up fixture against a County Select XI. Meanwhile, Rishabh Pant recovered from COVID-19, an injured Shubman Gill returned home, and Mayank Agarwal suffered a concussion and was ruled out of the first Test. Even so, India is seemingly in a better head-space, an important attribute while countering England in its backyard. Ever since its maiden tour of England in 1932, India has won only three series — 1971, 1986 and 2007 — at the Old Blighty. Having ambushed Australia, India wants to replicate that feat in cricket’s birthplace.

With its whimsical skies torn between the sun and feathery rain, and pitches favouring the sultans of pace, England is a hard testing ground. A cautionary fact is that India lost all its three previous tours during 2011, 2014 and 2018. It would be interesting to see who walks out along with Rohit Sharma as his fellow-opener. K.L. Rahul has a chance while Cheteshwar Pujara, Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane would constitute the middle-order. Hanuma Vihari is part of the mix with Pant lending match-altering flair. A pace-attack headlined by Jasprit Bumrah along with R. Ashwin lending his spin, augurs well and seemingly India have the right men. Yet, there are worry-lines. By their exalted standards, Kohli, Pujara and Rahane have had a lean patch, and Bumrah was not on fire against New Zealand. However, the team-management sees this as an aberration. Facing off against India, England has skipper Joe Root and the pace-combine of James Anderson and Stuart Broad to fall back upon. But there is no Jofra Archer and the exit of all-rounder Ben Stokes citing mental issues and the need for rest, is a blow to the host. Exactly 50 years after registering its maiden series victory in England, India is back for another tilt. With just the walking-wounded and its bench-strength, India stunned Australia. Kohli is banking on that memory to turn the tide.

The medal for claiming credit for Olympian achievements they have little to do with goes to the Indian politician.

In Indian politics, bhakti of the leader remains the road to salvation and survival for his minions.

Behind every successful sportsperson is not just sweat, tears and impossible hard work — but a politician (or twenty) racing at full speed to take credit for her victory. Olympics is the best season to spot this curious phenomenon. Exhibit A: Union minister of sports and youth affairs Anurag Thakur, who while gushing about PV Sindhu’s Olympic bronze in badminton did not forget to draw a connection between her feat and the efficacy of his government’s Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao scheme. There was the small matter of Saikhom Mirabai Chanu’s very small image on a banner put up at a ceremony to celebrate her Olympic silver medal in weightlifting. Not to forget the large billboards that came up in Guwahati as news of an assured Olympic medal for boxer Lovlina Borgohain trickled in. Only those uninitiated to the ways of Indian politics might have gasped at a minor detail: It wasn’t Borgohain, but Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s face, that was plastered all over the hoardings.

To be fair, this is not the first set of politicians to hitch a publicity ride on sports. Reflected glory has come in handy for more sinister reasons than vanity. Authoritarian regimes like Bahrain have been accused of using glamorous sports like Formula One to “whitewash” human rights abuses at home.

In Indian politics, bhakti of the leader remains the road to salvation and survival for his minions. It is a devotion that is happy to credit “the visionary guidance and able leadership” of Great Leaders for a wide variety of matters unrelated to the core KRA of governance — from the accomplishments of vaccine scientists to the rotations and revolutions of the third rock from the sun. How can an Olympic performance go unclaimed? Sure, winners take it all. And the medal for claiming credit for Olympian achievements they have little to do with goes to the Indian politician.

The Centre and the Assam agitation leaders had made substantial progress towards a solution of the foreign nationals’ issue as they adjourned their two- day informal talks in Shillong.

The government is willing to advance the cut-off year from the proposed 1967 to 1966 to facilitate a settlement of the foreign nationals’ issue.

The Centre and the Assam agitation leaders had made substantial progress towards a solution of the foreign nationals’ issue as they adjourned their two-day informal talks in Shillong. The venue of the next round is yet to be decided. The date will be finalised at the next meeting of the AASU-AAGSP executive committees. However, the agitation leadership has decided to go ahead with the programme of resuming the agitation beginning with a protest day on August 13, followed by a bandh in the state on August 14. The government is willing to advance the cut-off year from the proposed 1967 to 1966 to facilitate a settlement of the foreign nationals’ issue.

UP’s flood woes

The Rohini river, on the rampage in Gorakhpur, has breached four bunds inundating 200 villages. Relief and rescue operations have been launched on a large scale in the affected areas and 500 persons have been rescued so far. The Gorakhpur-Pharenda road has been flooded affecting vehicular traffic. The Ghagra, flowing above the danger level along its course from Balia to Barabanki, has marooned 15 villages and inundated 400 others in Faizabad district.

Pak’s ad rule

A ministerial announcement that the government would not permit the mass media to use women for commercial purposes has sent shock waves through Pakistan’s advertising world and caused an upsurge in the rank of feminists. Stop use of women as sex objects but why punish them for the sins of TV producers, ask women’s rights activists. Women’s organisations held a joint meeting in Karachi expressing concern over the move.

Iran bomb blast

Bombs exploded near the presidential office in Tehran and at a market in the western part of the country, killing at least 20 people. The incident happened hours after Mohammad Ali Rajai was sworn in as Iran’s president.

In Birla’s letter to cabinet secretary, reminder of a once competitive telecom sector under siege.

The offer, which essentially signals that the telco’s survival now is solely dependent on government action, underlines the dramatic possibility of a once hyper competitive sector transforming into a virtual duopoly dominated by one extremely strong player.

In a letter to Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman of telecommunications company Vi, has reportedly conveyed his willingness to “hand over” his stake in the company to any government or domestic financial entity in order to keep the beleaguered telco functioning. The offer, which essentially signals that the telco’s survival now is solely dependent on government action, underlines the dramatic possibility of a once hyper competitive sector transforming into a virtual duopoly dominated by one extremely strong player. With high barriers to entry in the form of spectrum costs, and licence fees, and continuing policy uncertainty unlikely to facilitate or encourage entry of new players, the implications of this shrinking competition on consumers, though they may not be immediately evident, are worrying.

Several disparate events have led the sector to this impasse. The tariff wars, which began in 2016 with the entry of the new player, wreaked havoc on the finances of telecom operators. Their precarious financial position has only been compounded by adverse court orders. In the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dispute, the Supreme Court upheld the government’s interpretation, allowing it to include revenue from non-telecom activities like interest income in its calculation of fees, thereby increasing the liability of telcos. On July 23, the Court dismissed the petitions of telcos seeking to recalculate the AGR dues. Vi’s total obligations on account are around Rs 60,000 crore.

The company has been trying to rope in investors, but in the current policy environment, it is difficult to see any investor stepping in. As Birla noted in his letter, potential foreign investors “want to see clear government intent to have a three-player telecom market (consistent with its public stance) through positive actions on long-standing requests such as clarity on AGR (adjusted gross revenues) liability, adequate moratorium on spectrum payments, and most importantly, a floor pricing regime above the cost of service.” This suggests that in the absence of a concerted effort on part of the government, a duopoly is all but certain. This is unfortunate. The government should have intervened early on to prevent things from coming to this pass. Not addressing the issue of predatory pricing and then not reconsidering the approach on the AGR issue have caused great damage to the sector. The effects of Vi going under will be felt not only by consumers, but also by the broader economy.

Unemployment numbers strike cautionary note — growth alone is not enough for recovery.

Even if the economy were to regain the pre-Covid levels in terms of GDP, the extent of economic distress (in terms of unemployment) may not ease to a similar extent.

The results of the latest annual report of the Periodic Labour Force Survey are surprising and instructive. The PLFS, conducted by the National Statistical Office, collects data on several metrics to present a comprehensive picture of employment in India, but, given its methodology, the data comes out with a considerable lag. This report pertains to the 12 months between July 2019 and June 2020. As such, it provides a glimpse into the state of unemployment both before the Covid pandemic and immediately after it.

The first thing to note is that the unemployment rate in India and its trend differ considerably depending on whether one chooses to use the “usual status” (unemployment over the past year) method or the “current weekly status (CWS)” (unemployment over the past week) method. According to the former, the unemployment rate declined — even as India’s economic growth rate was fast decelerating in this period — while the latter method suggests that unemployment levels remained close to an almost five-decade high. A similar divergence was seen in the other key metric — the labour force participation rate (essentially the percentage of people in the economy seeking work). India has one of the lowest LFPRs among comparable economies — almost 20 percentage points lower than the global average. If one looks at the CWS method, which is closer to the global norm, the official data suggests that the unemployment rate was close to 9 per cent while the unemployment rate among the youth (15 to 29 years of age) was 20 per cent, and this was the situation before the Covid disruption. In essence, it shows the extent of distress in the economy immediately before Covid. That, in turn, should put the news of economic recovery in perspective. Even if the economy were to regain the pre-Covid levels in terms of GDP, the extent of economic distress (in terms of unemployment) may not ease to a similar extent.

There is another reason why the unemployment rate may not fall commensurate with the rise in GDP. As can be seen in other large economies such as the US and China — both of which have recovered better (in terms of absolute GDP and GDP growth rate) from the Covid shock than most others — bringing down the unemployment rate may not be easy. That’s because the pandemic has fundamentally altered aspects of every economy’s functioning, often in ways that are not yet understood. The US, for example, has witnessed a growing mismatch between the skills that companies want and what workers offer. That is what explains the anomaly wherein both wage rate and unemployment rate are up in the US. Similarly, youth unemployment in China has stayed up, threatening consumer demand. Policymakers in India, too, need to be watchful. Growth alone is not enough if it comes without wellbeing (employment). If not addressed, high levels of unemployment will create both economic and social hurdles for growth.

As growth strengthens and the RBI’s inflation-targeting credibility comes under greater scrutiny, a policy pivot would become increasingly likely.

Within a span of a few months, India has transitioned from facing a shortage of hospital beds to showing off crowded holiday resorts. Fresh out of a deadly second wave, viral videos of clogged roads to hill stations and packed markets are symptomatic of the rapid recovery in economic activity as the worst of the lockdown restrictions have ended.

Growth indicators so far suggest a “Teflon economy” in the short term — a shallow dent in May’s economic activity followed by a recovery in June, back to April’s levels. The external, investment and industrial sectors have been relatively resilient, with consumption and services bearing the brunt. Notwithstanding signs of some fatigue in ultra-high frequency indicators in July, damage from the second wave seems largely limited to April-June 2021.

Nevertheless, a K-shaped recovery means light cracks on the top conceal much larger structural faultlines below. The Pew Research Centre estimates that the pandemic has led to India’s poor rising by 75 million, while the middle and upper-middle class has shrunk by 39 million. A recent survey by the ILO finds that the worst-hit — MSMEs and their informal workforce — have struggled to access the government’s pandemic support programmes. These more structural scars may become blurred in the GDP data in coming quarters as the economy rapidly normalises alongside strong global growth, fiscal activism, and easy financial conditions, but will almost certainly affect the medium-term growth story.

However, in the near term, there are two impending macro pivots to navigate. First, is the vaccine pivot. The “ultimate unlocking” of the economy remains contingent on a critical mass getting vaccinated, which on materialising should trigger a revival in consumer and business sentiment. The vaccine pivot is also an effective insurance policy against a possible third wave — a risk to near-term growth. The lacklustre pace of vaccination in July and fresh information on the vaccine pipeline suggest that there are risks of a delay in the pivot taking place in August, and to our baseline projection of around 50 per cent of the population being vaccinated by end-2021. However, the uptick in the pace of vaccination over the last few days and higher seroprevalence reported in some states are welcome news.

The second pivot is that of policy. When inflation is under control, then flush liquidity and ultra-accommodative monetary policy will help kill two birds with one stone — ensuring easy financial conditions, and helping control borrowing costs of the government’s expansive borrowing programme. However, this strategy is not costless. It effectively uses the central bank’s credibility in controlling inflation as “collateral”. So when inflation flares up and remains sticky, this arithmetic becomes increasingly complicated.

The RBI’s consistent message recently has been to view the current inflation surge as a “temporary hump”. However, CPI inflation is tracking 5-6 per cent on an already high base of 6.6 per cent in 2020, amid elevated inflation expectations, ongoing supply-side shocks and imminent demand-side ones. We believe these factors should have ordinarily led to monetary policy alarm bells ringing. But as Governor Shaktikanta Das recently commented, “It is not like any other year, when inflation goes up, you start tightening the monetary policy”.

But maybe that year is coming to a close, although not at the August policy meeting later this week. Despite our expectation of the RBI revising up its CPI inflation projection higher by 40 basis points, the message is likely to be that this is not a monetary policy game-changer. Instead, we expect a message on the lines of inflation remaining supply-side driven, the economic recovery still requiring policy support, and bond yields still needing to be kept under control.

Much as the current monetary policy stance maintains that the economy is ill-equipped to handle policy normalisation, it is a matter of when rather than if. As growth strengthens and the RBI’s inflation-targeting credibility comes under greater scrutiny, a policy pivot would become increasingly likely. In our baseline projection, we expect a 40 basis point reverse repo rate hike in Q4, and then cumulative hikes of 75 basis points in 2022.

The broader, and probably trickier issue for central banks, governments, and indeed the public is how to live with “long Covid”. Even with widespread vaccinations, future pandemic waves may well be unavoidable. Fiscal, monetary and administrative policies cannot remain in a suspended emergency.

Pandemic has slowed it down, needs of children cannot be addressed only online. Every stakeholder at the state, district, sub- district, block level has to take ownership of the policy.

For the NEP to move forward, we need robust institutional mechanisms to support the policy.

The launch of the National Education Policy 2020 marked remarkable progress in the area of education and learning. We are now one year into the policy. How much of it has been realised? Have schools focused on the challenges reflected in the policy? Has the vision document entered the community at any level?Aspects of assessments, vocational education, subject selection, child appropriate age- and stage-based programmes at the foundational, preparatory and middle school, among other initiatives, were supposed to be embedded in the educational space.

Various state governments are still reflecting on the possibility of implementing some policies at ground level. National boards have tried during the Covid year to bring in some changes in classroom transaction connected with well-being, inclusive education, joyful learning, a compilation of best teaching practices, assessment models etc. As a result of schools having closed down, the big shifts did not take place in areas of thematic learning or multiple pedagogical approaches.

For the NEP to move forward, we need robust institutional mechanisms to support the policy. A great deal of capacity building is required along with creating enthusiasm among stakeholders. Every stakeholder at the state, district, sub-district, block level has to have ownership and understanding of the concepts. Directorates of education have to be strengthened in order to ensure that the policy permeates to the district and zonal level educational clusters. Unless every teacher at the foundational, primary and middle school level develops a sense of ownership, the transformation will not take place. We have to move schools and staff from fixed to growth mindsets in order for them to make sense of the new changes.

Currently, we are grappling with huge learning gaps. Schools cannot be compared to institutions of higher education; the needs of children are more personalised and cannot be addressed only online. With the extension of school closures and fear of infections, children are losing touch with understanding, comprehension, reading and speaking skills.

According to the prime minister, the NEP will help our children to realise their hopes, aspirations and dreams to get them future ready. We require effective strategies to physically equip teachers and students with better tools in the classroom, increase access to laptops and other gadgets, install interactive white boards and provide fast and reliable internet access.

Technology connects people, but it has limitations as far as teaching and learning are concerned. This crisis has made us reflect on the inequality not only in bandwidth, and devices, but also in the fact that the parents do not have the time or ability to support their children in this venture. Schools of brick and mortar cannot be completely dispensed with as places of learning. They are a reflection of community, time, care and values, which technology has not been able to touch.

It is imperative that we lay emphasis on vaccination of the young and old, without which the schools would find it difficult to reopen. Only a fraction of students across the country have moved to online learning exposing the deep inequity in the system, and opening up a digital abyss. Today in India, over 90 per cent of students do not have devices that allow them to access online learning holistically.

The NEP is extremely experiential and palpable; it cannot be brought in through online devices. Schools have to determine their capacity for restructuring, mobilising teachers, strategising the operational needs required to navigate their understanding and implementation of the NEP. In the last year and a half, we have been pushed into designing schools for crisis as opposed to designing schools for what we want them to be.

Students, teachers and other stakeholders have gone through a great deal of uncertainty and relearning in classrooms. The new technologies that they are grappling with have required training, reworking and experimenting with apps that they never knew existed. This has led to a fragile learning system with implications for the implementation of the NEP and, in fact, education in general.

The issues that are impacting schools today are rapid, technological changes, societal expectations and changing demographics. In order to implement the NEP, research, evaluation and documentation is essential along with coordination and convergence of the policy and programmes connected with it. We have still not been able to sensitise the parent community as far as the NEP is concerned because of the challenges that have been thrown up due to a break in basic education.

The state and national boards across the nation will have to start with pilot programmes. Creation of master trainers should be done who will train principals and teachers in urban and rural areas, replicating the model across all schools. This success can resonate through twinning programmes and school clusters with government and state schools.

The important outcome of the pandemic is that due to technological advancement and embedding of social media platforms, a countrywide level of awareness has taken place vis a vis the NEP. Various state and national boards have made efforts for consensus building in order to dispel the cynicism that exists.

The NEP is essentially about learning through observation, listening, exploring, experimenting and asking questions. All of these are hands-on experiences, which require interest, motivation, engagement and a need for children to understand why they are learning. None of the above are really part of online learning. The CBSE has worked very hard to build training modules in order to steer the programmes of the NEP through its active sahodaya school complexes with a task force to oversee implementation.

The hubs of learning have been activated. Innovation ambassador programmes are being created which will help in strengthening the mentoring capacity where teachers are being trained on design thinking, innovations, idea generation, intellectual property rights, product prototype development etc. This will help create robust, smart future schools. However, 22,000 schools of CBSE are not even a drop in the ocean of learning, in spite of their efforts to strengthen systems.

The road of learning that stretches before us is both exciting and filled with challenges. The journey has begun.

This column first appeared in the print edition on August 4, 2021 under the title ‘The learning journey’. The writer is Chairperson and Executive Director Education, DLF Foundation Schools and Scholarship Programmes.

Focus on livelihoods, especially of those working in coal mines and fossil-fuel power plants, and a people-centric approach.

To achieve the trifecta of jobs, growth and sustainability, India must strive to put people at the centre of its energy transformation.

Energy transitions are gaining momentum worldwide, and India is no exception. The country has achieved the remarkable double leapfrog of connecting nearly all households to electricity while also creating one of the world’s largest markets for renewable energy. But ensuring that the opportunities of India’s transition are shared fairly throughout society — and workers and communities are not left to face the challenges alone — is not an easy task, given the country’s population and diversity. To achieve the trifecta of jobs, growth and sustainability, India must strive to put people at the centre of its energy transformation.

With an ever-growing list of countries announcing net-zero emissions targets, the global energy system is set to undergo a transformation in the coming decades. According to an IEA analysis, 90 per cent of new electricity generation capacity around the world now comes from renewables.

In India, that energy transformation is well underway. It is among the world’s top five countries in terms of renewable power capacity. Its ambitious target to increase India’s renewable energy capacity to 450 gigawatts (GW) by 2030 would help move it closer to achieving the country’s broader climate goals. By then, low-carbon energy sources could account for more than 60 per cent of India’s total power capacity, well above what it originally committed to under the Paris Agreement. India is also showing global clean energy leadership through initiatives such as the International Solar Alliance, which has more than 70 member countries.

Boosting clean energy investments brings immediate gains, including job creation and new economic opportunities. According to the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), the deployment of 450 GW of renewables would employ more than half a million workers. But not everyone benefits immediately or equally. Emerging and developing economies are starting from different baselines than advanced economies and they must tailor their pathways to ensure their transitions are inclusive.

In India’s case, new jobs would need to be found over time for the coal miners affected by the changes, as well as for people who work in the fossil fuel power plants that will close down. Many will need retraining for work in other sectors. Credible severance packages and insurance cushions would also help make the transition easier to navigate. Policymakers must earmark special “transition funds” to help coal-dependent regions, some of which are among India’s poorest, to remodel their economies and develop new industries.

Energy subsidies must be rationalised and directed towards those who need them most. This would help sustain the gains of the Saubhagya and Ujjwala schemes, which have successfully extended energy access to some of India’s most underserved areas. Fiscal resources freed up through subsidy reform should then be invested in clean energy solutions, especially in underdeveloped regions and marginalised communities.

A just transition should focus on how clean energy can support rural livelihoods and increase communities’ resilience in the aftermath of the pandemic shock. It can do this through a focus on how to share the benefits of clean energy technologies with micro-entrepreneurs and small businesses. In rural India, clean energy innovations for farms and businesses offer a market opportunity worth more than $50 billion. The energy transition in rural India can be driven by dedicated policies to promote renewables, incentivise investment in decentralised low-carbon power sources like rooftop solar, and train and build the capacity of clean energy entrepreneurs.

While India’s energy transition will create many new jobs, the limited participation of women in the growing green workforce must be addressed. According to a 2019 study by CEEW and the IEA, women account for nearly 32 per cent of the renewables workforce globally but only around 11 per cent of the rooftop solar workforce in India. As a priority, renewable energy companies must promote policies to ensure gender parity in their workforce. These could include investments in suitable facilities for women at project sites, designing guidelines for flexible working arrangements, and creating programmes to prepare more women for leadership roles.

In the short term, stimulus spending in the labour-intensive construction sector could accelerate progress on the Affordable Housing Mission. Incorporating energy efficiency and green construction methods into these projects could ensure millions of homes enjoy thermal comfort, and help make energy efficiency a core part of building designs. Many local jobs could also be promoted by the Make in India Initiative, particularly if it is focused on manufacturing energy-efficient appliances, battery technologies and components for renewable energy systems.

Finally, engaging the youth is critical to ensure that the energy transition is sustainable, inclusive and enduring. It is the emerging generation of innovators and entrepreneurs that will provide the technical and social solutions of the future. Young entrepreneurs in India have already shown their impact by expanding the footprint of renewables and disrupting traditional energy models.

Some of these key themes are being explored by the 30 members of the Global Commission on People-Centred Clean Energy Transitions, which the IEA launched in January. The Global Commission will make recommendations in advance of the COP-26 Climate Change Conference in November on how to empower citizens and communities to both seize the opportunities and navigate the disruptions of the energy transition.

India’s energy transition is already an inspiration for many emerging economies. A people-centric approach, backed by good policy design, will not only help India build a clean and inclusive energy future, but could also provide a model for other countries and communities worldwide.

This column first appeared in the print edition on August 4, 2021 under the title ‘A just energy transition’. Godrej is Chairperson of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) and a member of IEA’s Global Commission on People-Centred Clean Energy Transitions. Birol is Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The gains, however little, achieved through decades of work of civil liberties groups, and milestone judgments are reversed through the open endorsement of custodial violence by an elected government.

There have been clashes between the police forces of Assam and Mizoram and six Assam cops have died in the conflict.

The latest trend of Assam Police personnel shooting alleged offenders in various parts of the state and the defence of such incidents by both the police establishment and the chief minister displays a dangerous politics. According to news reports, since mid-May, after the new BJP government led by Himanta Biswa Sarma came into power, at least 24 people were shot at by the police; five of them died. Each was allegedly in police custody when they were shot at, and most of their alleged crimes were robbery, drug peddling, cattle theft, etc. In some cases, the police themselves admitted that they discovered past criminal cases against the dead only afterwards.

The police killings of petty offenders or accused has often been perceived by human rights defenders and scholars as an integral part of the dark practices of an institution still under a colonial hangover in its structure and functioning. Civil rights organisations like PUDR started reporting cases of torture and killing in police custody in the early 1980s. Since then, scholars have studied torture and death in police custody and connected it variously to the inherent dilemmas of a liberal democratic state, where police violence is often practised on the ground but hidden by the state (Jinee Lokaneeta, 2012), the contingent or jugaari nature of police functioning where the police work under pressure from political and community leaders while dealing with lack of resources and transparency (Beatrice Jauregui, 2017). I have looked at how police violence, whether in the context of managing crime or fighting political resistance, feed on discourses of “othering” on the one hand, and promises of “protection” in the absence of other “efficient” institutions (Khanikar, 2018). All these works note how the de facto practices of policing in the country move away from rights and guarantees of the Constitution, and often violate various sections of the IPC. Lokaneeta, in her recent book, argues that such violence is hidden by a scaffolding of rule of law in post-colonial India. Legal technicalities, procedures, paperwork, etc. hide the violence of real policing, apart from taking recourse to denials and blaming rogue lower-level personnel.

The recent spate of police violence in Assam, however, doesn’t seem to be taking recourse to any of these masking techniques. There is no attempt at hiding or passing the buck. Chief Minister Sarma openly said that the state police has been given orders to shoot at the legs of “criminals”, though not at their heads or chests. When asked if police shoot-outs have become a pattern in the state, the CM responded by saying that police shoot-outs should be a pattern, using the word “criminals” while referring to the alleged offenders. He justified such shoot-outs in the name of “public good”. The police’s predictable defence in most of the cases involves either an attempt to flee or seizure of guns, where none of the police personnel ever gets injured but only the one in custody gets shot.

Though the NHRC has sent letters to the state police, the open support of the BJP government for such custodial violence makes justice hard to attain, if not impossible. The gains, however little, achieved through decades of work of civil liberties groups, and milestone judgments like DK Basu are reversed through the open endorsement of custodial violence by an elected government. It also belies the very promise of a liberal democratic society, of respect towards every individual as of equal worth, assumption of innocence until proven guilty, and of a reformative, not punitive, criminal justice system.

Extreme police action is not unknown to Assam. In a political context chequered with protest movements and their suppression, police and paramilitary state violence is a part of daily life for many in the state. Narratives of the brutality of the police, Indian army and CRPF operations in search of ULFA activists are part of village lore that children grow up with. The late ’90s and early 2000s were the times of the “secret killers”. More recently, there have been various incidents of police violence. The torture of three women in Darrang district in 2019, one of them pregnant, was widely reported and critiqued, and a police sub-inspector and woman constable were suspended and investigated on charges of torture.

But in all these previous instances of police violence, there have either been attempts to hide them or fabricate them as something else, or blame was placed upon lower-level personnel. The recent examples of police violence in the state, however, project a different ideology of policing and governance in the state. DGP Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta in a recent press meet regarding Covid-19 -related restrictions talked about how the police would be forced to beat up people if they are found on roads, and followed it with actual beatings as well as more “innovative” harassment techniques like picking up morning walkers and leaving them stranded far away from their home. This openly vigilante nature of routine police practices gels well with the incidents of shoot-outs because, in both kinds of practice, the police are given an official sanction to act in authoritarian ways.

In the context of George Floyd protests in the US, and in the context of India after the custodial killings of Jayaraj and Bennix in Tamil Nadu, while police abolition movements are advocating alternative ways of ensuring public safety, government justification of such lawless police forces looks like a death knell for democracy and civil rights.

Prosperity is possible and best accomplished by the goal of making the rupee a global reserve currency by 2047.

India will celebrate 100 years of Independence in 2047. We have magnificently created the world’s largest democracy on the infertile soil of the world’s most hierarchical society. But can the next 25 years combine this vibrant democracy with mass prosperity? We make the case that this prosperity is possible and best accomplished by the goal of making the rupee a global reserve currency by India@100.

Picking goals for countries is complex. Overcoming the “five giants of want, disease, ignorance, squalor, and idleness” needs education, health, infrastructure, low inflation, financial inclusion, high GDP per capita, etc, while navigating wicked trade-offs between current and future generations. In Obliquity, economist John Kay suggests that the best strategy for complex systems that change with engagement is accomplishing goals indirectly. Becoming a global reserve currency is a wholesome goal because it indirectly aligns fiscal, monetary, and economic policy. And it’s a legitimate goal because democracies like ours recognise success to be the outcome of fair voting; reserve currency status involves voting by impartial wallets.

Official foreign exchange reserves of about $12 trillion across 150 countries are currently stored in eight currencies: 55 per cent in US dollars, 30 per cent in euros, and 15 per cent in six other currencies. This concentration is inevitable given exploding trade, rising capital flows, and the less acknowledged motivation of protecting your reserves from your currency’s volatility. A reserve currency has to serve as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account. The main property of a reserve currency country is trust and the main upside is the “exorbitant privilege” of lower real interest rates.

Getting countries to store their reserves in the rupee needs luck and skill. Our luck arises from a multipolar world (America now accounts for less than 25 per cent of global GDP), the need for diversification (central bank reserves in dollars have fallen to 55 per cent from 71 per cent in 1999), new US thinking about indebtedness (in the last 13 years, their debt increased by $20 trillion equivalent to 90 per cent of GDP), central bank credibility (lower-for-longer creates a quantitative easing addiction), demographics (25 per cent of the world’s new workers in the next 10 years will be Indian), the UK’s secular decline, a global shift of economic gravity to Asia, and the challenges of trusting China. Our economic skills have a strong opening balance: India has never defaulted and the 1991 reforms have been accelerated by big reforms like GST, IBC, inflation targeting, education, labour, and agriculture.

The base camp for this ambition is full capital account convertibility, as suggested by the Tarapore Committee in 1997. The rupee is substantially convertible for foreigners. A 2030 deadline for finishing the agenda could be a nice interim milestone. Dollar investors in the last decade not experiencing the usual big bite out of rupee returns is useful for advocating trading partners to start rupee invoicing, raising corporate rupee borrowing offshore and onshore, accelerating our CBDC (central bank digital bank currency) plans, and taking our UPI payment technology to the world (the dollar gets heft from global networks like Visa, MasterCard and Swift)

The policy agenda is clear. Fiscal policy must raise our tax to GDP ratio, raise the share of direct taxes in total taxes, and keep our public debt to GDP ratio under 100 per cent. Monetary policy must control inflation while moderating central bank balance sheet size. Economic policy must raise the productivity of our regions, sectors, firms, and individuals to reach goals in formalisation (400 million workplace social security payers), urbanisation (250 cities with more than a million people), financialisation (100 per cent credit to GDP ratio), industrialisation (less than 15 per cent farm employment), internationalisation (higher share of global trade) and skilling. These goals must be complemented by reinforcing institutions that signal rule of law; cooperative federalism, press freedom, civil service effectiveness, and judicial independence.

Being a reserve currency, like life, is a beauty contest — to win you don’t have to be perfect, just better than your competitors. Our competitor is China. The 2 per cent renminbi share in global reserves — despite a 25 per cent increase last year — doesn’t reflect their status as the world’s second-largest economy and biggest trading nation. While India has no interest in becoming China, it’s useful to understand competitors and reflect on the three reasons why the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) last month got so much more global attention than the 100th anniversary of the Indian National Congress (INC) in 1985. First is the CCP’s skill and need for propaganda. Second is the INC in 1985 — it wasn’t the original party, it was no longer a meritocracy, and its global soft power was damaged by the Emergency. But the most important reason is China’s wealth and power — per capita GDP rising 80 times in the last 40 years has lifted 800 million Chinese out of poverty.

But this astounding success seems to be making China overconfident. Recent policy — border disputes with neighbours, asphyxiating Hong Kong, withdrawing the Ant IPO, and savaging the Didi IPO — calls into question the long rope China has received since Henry Kissinger flew secretly to Beijing from Pakistan in 1971. US investors who have bought “shares” in the roughly 250 Chinese companies listed on US exchanges with a $2 trillion peak market capitalisation don’t actually own equity. They own pieces of a Cayman “variable interest entity”, which has a contract with the parent company. Under Chinese law, foreigners can’t own Chinese shares directly. Like most things in opaque China, it’s one of those things that “works great until it doesn’t”.

Chinese overconfidence creates an opportunity for India. Prosperity for all Indians by India@100 — a precondition for a country where the mind is without fear and the head is held high — needs bold reforms in the next 25 years. These reforms are best measured by the wholesome and achievable goal of the rupee becoming a global reserve currency by 2047. The journey is the reward.

This column first appeared in the print edition on August 4, 2021 under the title ‘A rupee wish for India@100’. Sabharwal is co-founder, Teamlease Services and Vishwanathan is a former Central Banker.

In a verdict that should educate authorities everywhere, the Supreme Court has said preventive detention requires serious threats to public order, not merely law and order apprehensions. An alleged white collar offender’s wife had complained that her husband was placed under preventive detention for a year by Telangana authorities under the apprehension that he would commit offences. This, after being granted anticipatory bail in five cases.

The court noted that cheating or criminal breach of trust certainly affects “law and order” but to place a person under preventive detention required a serious threat to public order, potentially affecting the community or the public at large. In the Telangana case, the police didn’t demand cancellation of anticipatory bail – an omission that tells us a lot about policing.

Recourse to preventive detention is particularly troubling because it tantamounts to imprisonment without trial or proper investigation or arraignment before a magistrate within 24 hours of detention. Justification for such detentions came from India’s history of massive agitations – on statehood, quotas, peasant and labour issues – as well as localised violence, communal riots and insurgencies. But preventive detention is sanctioned by the Constitution only with safeguards.

Therefore, even granting there is a grey area between detention before commission of any offence and the necessity of preserving public order, this power must be sparingly used – only when there’s reasonable probability of public disorder, not to “punish” troublemakers or keep them out of circulation. While 3,223 detenues were in prison on December 31, 2019, a 35% rise from 2018, another 6,533 detenues were released during the year. Significantly, 25% of surveyed detenues were illiterate and 41% had sub-Class 10 education, suggesting the possibility that many detentions are targeted at citizens who can be easily bullied. Advisory Boards that vet preventive detention orders must do their job far better. As the SC did here.

A decade ago, India’s telecom market was hypercompetitive. An occasional crib was that there were too many mobile service providers. Now, the situation has reversed; we may soon see a duopoly for all practical purposes. It’s come about as KM Birla, one of the promoters of Vodafone Idea, has asked GoI for support to stay afloat. The company has a market share of about 24%, the third largest after Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel. The two public sector companies, BSNL and MTNL, collectively have around 10% share, and are for all practical purposes non-players.

Vodafone’s problem is twofold. It’s making losses and existing promoters, including Vodafone Group, have shown no inclination to invest more. Reportedly, potential investors want some government guarantees, including an administered floor price above the cost of services. A return to administered pricing is not in public interest. It is not just antithetical in a market-based sector like telecom, it also tends to encourage rent-seeking. As for ‘predatory pricing’, that debate is complicated by the fall in tariffs consumers have enjoyed. That issue can only be settled by regulators.

On the question of a more direct GoI intervention, giving a fresh moratorium on spectrum payments will help Vodafone. But that has to be given to all players. Plus, it will be a temporary salve, not a solution. The best solution is to use the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. IBC also ensures that banks that have lent to Vodafone won’t suddenly have to declare piles of bad loans.

The broader point is the need for a competitive telecom market. About 97% of internet access is through wireless and the 4G network covers 98% of the population. Competition is necessary to serve larger public interests in such a critical sector. Markets with a regulatory structure that encourages competition have at least three to four large telecom service providers.

GoI can play a facilitating role in fostering competition. Telecom firms should not be viewed as just sources of revenue. They are intrinsic to the success of India’s many ambitions, including empowering millions with better digital tools and ensuring easier access to public services. Therefore, GoI should lower at least some of the many levies that are raised from telecom companies, figure out a way to get to 5G without causing more pain to all stakeholders, and promise regulatory stability. If these conditions are met, given Indian telecom’s vast potential, another player may just get interested.