📰 The fading appeal of soft power
Recent strategic decisions indicate a post-normative turn in India’s foreign policy
•In India’s evolving foreign policy imagination, the pursuit of power and influence seems to eclipse the country’s traditions of normative behaviour and principled positions. The jury is still out on whether by shedding its normative shibboleths New Delhi is finally doing what states typically do, and whether or not its post-normative turn will negatively impact its national interests.
The rise of realpolitik
•Around three months ago, the Central government frankly told the Supreme Court, “we don’t want India to become a refugee capital,” even as the Border Security Force (BSF) had been pushing back Rohingya refugees from the eastern borders.
•India’s stand vis-à-vis Rohingya refugees is an indication of how new India proposes to deal with humanitarian issues in its neighbourhood. Its approach to the Rohingya crisis (i.e. its refusal to admit people fleeing for their lives into the country or to ask Myanmar to address the human rights violations against its Rohingya population) is informed by several realpolitik considerations. At the domestic political level, there is a religious rationale for pushing back Muslim Rohingya, and an electoral calculation vis-à-vis the Northeast and West Bengal. At a broader level, with the Chinese charm offensive in the region putting India on the defensive, it does not want to alienate Myanmar. And yet, in its enthusiasm to please Myanmar by not nudging it to resolve the refugee issue lest it warm up to China, India actually ended up ceding ground to China when Beijing began negotiations between Myanmar and Bangladesh.
•India’s response to the Rohingya crisis, then, is in stark contrast to its long tradition of offering refuge to the region’s homeless. What makes this policy even more petty-minded is the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government’s proposed Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, which empowers the government to offer citizenship to migrants hailing from minority communities in the neighbourhood, except Muslims. It is clear then that the government’s position on refugees is anything but principled.
Downplaying non-alignment
•Consider another example. Through the much-publicised celebration of the India-Israel partnership, the government has made it clear that it seeks to pursue a foreign policy guided by realpolitik. From being ideological opponents to maintaining a relationship in the closet, India and Israel have come a long way. While an earlier BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government had invited the then Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, to visit India, and the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government deepened engagement, the current NDA government has taken the relationship to another level. New Delhi doesn’t any more pay heed to accusations of human rights violations against Tel Aviv, its blatant refusal to abide by various UN resolutions, or the manner in which it discards the political rights of the Palestinians.
•This is not to discount the fact that there is an instrumental rationale underlying the India-Israel relationship, especially in terms of national security and strategic considerations. But isn’t there a troubling politico-ideological narrative underwriting this partnership which seems to go beyond the material requirements of the Indian state?
•Non-alignment once used to be the cornerstone of India’s foreign policy, and even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, New Delhi continued to pay lip service to it. In 2016, only for the second time ever, India’s Prime Minister was not present at the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit. NAM stood for several important global movements: decolonisation, disarmament, correcting the inherent ills of the global economic order, etc. For sure, some of the founding ideals of NAM may have lost their relevance today, but the grouping can help rising powers such as India to enhance their global standing and influence. But then, solidarity with other developing countries is no more a foreign policy priority for New Delhi, nor is it greatly invested in strategic autonomy.
•With the U.S. designating India as a “Major Defence Partner”, it is one India’s closest strategic partners today. In 2016, India had signed the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement with the U.S. which gives both sides access to designated military facilities for refuelling and replenishment. Clearly, this is far more useful to the U.S. than to India. Several such agreements are in the pipeline. In 2014, the U.S. replaced Russia as India’s largest defence supplier, and the Russians started negotiating arms sales with Pakistan that same year.
•It is in this context that Mr. Modi’s ‘informal summit’ with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi is viewed as an attempt by both to reassure each other that the relationship has not lost its warmth. However, will India-Russia relations survive the several fundamental geopolitical and material transformations taking place in the Asian region and their sharp, and and seemingly irreconcilable, differences in dealing with them?
•And whatever happened to good neighbourliness? The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) seems to be consigned to the dustbin of history as for some reason New Delhi sees no future for it. Is the ‘mistreatment’ of SAARC in our best interest? It is ironic that SAARC and NAM, both India-centric institutions, have been sidelined by our own conscious efforts.
•Non-alignment is passé, ‘neighbourhood first’, despite the recent overtures, is falling apart, and multi-alignment is increasingly looking like a fantasy: India’s post-normative foreign policy is in a shambles.
How does all this add up?
•Thinking beyond normative strictures has both positive and negative implications. When free from ideological constraints and legacy dilemmas, states can pursue their self-interest with a free hand. There will be lot more flexibility to determine the demands of national interest, for national interest is itself not static, only the idea of it is. India’s post-normative approach to external behaviour also is a recognition of the importance of the pursuit of power in the contemporary international system. In that sense then, the new foreign policy thinking in the country has some merits.
•The post-normative turn also comes with its challenges and complications. For one, the soft power persuasiveness of a country is also the product of its political ideals, civilisational values and its cultural resonance. Choosing to exclusively focus on hard power for foreign policy outcomes sidelines our rich soft power attributes. Second, new India’s foreign policy choices also indicate the company it wishes to keep in the comity of nations and what it wants from the international system. It seeks hard power, great power status and the company of great powers — not an equitable international order and the company of developing nations. If so, we must also ask how steadfast are our current great power partnerships? Will they stand the test of time well beyond the attraction of India’s growing defence budgets and expanding consumer markets?
•Post-normative India is also an aggressive India, and even the hollow invocations to Gandhian non-violence have become less than routine. Worryingly, the reliance on aggression as a foreign policy tool seems to have strong domestic political origins, premised on a mistaken belief that force can overcome resistance. Some Ministers openly threaten neighbours of military strikes, and military leaders display a growing fondness for making domestic political statements. Confrontation seems to have displaced quiet diplomacyas our favoured tool for conflict resolution. And, as a society, we seem to be emotionally invested in coercive solutions to political questions both within and outside the country. Yet, India is more insecure today than it was four years ago.
•We would do ourselves good to remember that the pursuit of national interest is a complex affair, and norms, values and soft power should co-exist with the pursuit of hard power.
📰 Keeping each other on edge
Anguish about the tussles between the executive and the judiciary is misplaced
•In recent times, a series of stormy issues between the executive, the powers that be and the judiciary has had the common man clutching his head in despair. The shrillness in public discussions leaves him with an uncomfortably distinct impression that this is the end of the road for an independent judiciary. Such anguish, however, exposes a poor understanding of the complex web that constitutional relations between the three organs of the state — the executive, the judiciary and the legislature — inevitably are.
•Every developed constitutional democracy in the world has had its share of such showdowns. But at the end of the day, such tussles have only strengthened democracy and not weakened its structure as the history of constitutional governance the world over would attest.
•In England, in 2003, the then government announced the abolition of the office of the Lord Chancellor (who traditionally also headed the judiciary) and further declared that a Supreme Court of the United Kingdom was to be established without so much as consulting or informing the judiciary. This resulted in huge public outcry. The result was that Lord Woolf (then Lord Chief Justice) and Lord Falconer (then Lord Chancellor) started a series of discussions that involved the judiciary and the government about “the key principles and principal arrangements” that would govern the new establishment. In 2004, the consensus arrived at during such talks was ultimately reduced to an agreement known as the “Concordat”. The terms of this agreement were then collated in a statute by enactment of the Constitutional Reform Act, 2005, which managed in large measure to dissipate the tensions between the executive and judiciary. Perhaps it is high time India takes a serious look at an option such as this.
The chain
•As Lord Woolf so wisely pointed out, the three organs of the state are like three chains that hold the structure of the state together. He observed, “If one chain slackens, then another needs to take the strain. However, so long as there is no danger of the chain breaking, the fact that this happens is not a manifestation of weakness but strength.”
•In India, even when there was no strict separation of powers, we had the remarkable case of John Peter Grant who was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Bombay in 1829.
•He asserted his judicial powers in a striking manner in the celebrated case of Moro Raghunath. Raghunath was orphaned at the age of 14. The British placed him in the guardianship of a person called Pandurang Ram who was related to the Peshwas. The Bombay government was committed to treat him as a privileged ward. The guardianship was contested by Raghunath’s father-in-law who filed a habeas corpus before the Supreme Court of Bombay contending that Raghunath had been illegally detained by Pandurang Ram. A writ was issued, but the government of the day headed by John Malcom as Governor refused to obey it. Instead the Governor wrote to the judges to refrain from any conduct which would have, “the effect of producing open collision between our authority and yours” Grant, responded to this by simply shutting down all the courts in Bombay contending, “I have therefore to announce that the court has ceased on all its sides, and that I shall perform none of the functions of a Judge of the Supreme Court until the court received an assurance that its authority will be respected and its process obeyed and respected and rendered effectual by the Government of this Presidency.” This raging struggle between the government and the judiciary ultimately was resolved with the intervention of the Privy Council on a technical issue relating to jurisdiction. However, it serves to remind us that the judiciary versus executive conflict in this country has a long history and with the coming of the doctrine of separation of powers, tensions are inevitable.
Judicial independence
•The tensions that ran high during the Emergency between the executive and the judiciary are too well known and documented to merit repetition here.
•Catastrophic as each of these instances was considered when it occurred, judicial independence remains unaffected and firm in these countries even today.
•Constitutional principles such as the independence of the judiciary in a well-established system of democratic governance are tall towers built on the sure foundations of tried and tested principles. They do not come apart at the trace of a slight tempest.
•In a bygone era, authority was accepted on principles set by a culture of reverence. Today none of the three organs of the state is inclined to extend this privilege to the other. Therefore, every constitutional authority can seek to validate its action only on the touchstone of reason and conformity to the constitutional ethos. Concerns about the independence of the judiciary being in peril have set alarm bells ringing. However, these are neither meant to escalate tensions nor to confound the common man but are to be treated as a wake-up call to the constitutional authorities concerned to get their act together and resolve issues amicably within the larger constitutional framework.
•In the wise words of constitutional scholar Dennis Pearce, “For the good of our society, it is better for the combatants to realise that they are there to serve the people, not their own ends, and to adapt their conduct accordingly.”
📰 We are very interested in joining Exercise Malabar: Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop
She speaks on the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and deepening the strategic and economic relationship with India
•As Minister for Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop was the lead player in the development of the Australian Foreign Policy White Paper. Released in 2017, it sets out a course for Australia to navigate a world in which the international order is being reshaped and power balances altered with the rise of China. It regards the Indo-Pacific as critical to Australia’s interests and a deepening partnership with India as vital in securing peace and prosperity in the region. Ms. Bishop, who is also the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party and tipped by many commentators as a future Prime Minister, fields questions on Australia’s place in what it sees as an increasingly “complex and contested” region. Excerpts:
Does the main challenge to Australia’s strategic and economic future lie in what one of your international security scholars described as the “end of the Vasco da Gama era”, that is, the end of Western ascendancy in Asia?
•Well, I think our primary foreign policy objective is to achieve an open, inclusive and prosperous Indo-Pacific, in which the rights of all states are respected. This Indo-Pacific embraces India and the nations of the Asia Pacific. Not just as geographic description, but [one that reflects] the strategic and economic dynamics of our broader region and its changing balance of power and influence. So, our foreign policy debate is where Australia is positioned and where our interests lie — that’s how I describe the current scenario.
The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, this strategic grouping of the U.S., India, Japan and Australia, has been resurrected. But what progress exactly has been made since the last meeting some months ago and do we know when the next one is going to be held?
•I understand that our officials are scheduling a second Quad meeting soon. But the Quad is one of many subgroupings in the Indo-Pacific. Australia already has a trilateral strategic dialogue with the U.S. and Japan, while the U.S., Japan and India have their established meeting. I think the Quad is a natural extension of these mini-lateral relationships. It’s just one of the many ways in which Australia will seek to engage with partners that help shape our region at a time of geostrategic and technological and economic change. So, like many other groupings in the region, if the Quad is established at a higher level, it will allow our four nations to discuss all matters of common interest, as we do in other regional groupings. It’s obviously something to which Australia is committed, and I believe it’s a bipartisan approach towards the Quadrilateral.
What has changed since Australia pulled out of the Quad a few years ago? It was the Labour government that pulled out because of apprehensions over how this might play out with Australia’s economic relationship with China. But doesn’t the same apply today?
•Well, it certainly wasn’t a decision of my side of politics to pull out of the Quad. We were exceedingly disappointed when the Labour government made a decision to withdraw from the Quad. We think that India’s importance is not to be understated; it’s a significant strategic partner for Australia and I think we share converging interests, particularly in the Indian Ocean. And India is the world’s largest democracy and will soon be the world’s most populous nation and so its economy is integrating, with technology and global know-how. It’s becoming increasingly integrated with the economies of East Asia and North Asia.
•We see our relationship with India growing, based on the key pillars of security cooperation, economic engagement and, obviously, people-to-people links. I think the security and defence relationship has expanded greatly in the past few years. We’ve now got joint exercises across all three services and we’ve most certainly got a shared interest in maritime security, upholding international law, regional stability and countering violent extremism.
Is India as invested in the Quad as Australia is? I ask this in the context of the annual Malabar naval exercises. Are you a little disappointed that you are not a part of it this year?
•Well, Malabar is a bilateral exercise between India and the U.S., and Japan was invited. Australia wasn’t invited to join. We are interested in joining Exercise Malabar but we are giving priority to the deepening of our bilateral exercises for now. As Indian Ocean nations with democratic values and an interest in regional security, I think Australia and India are natural defence partners. We conducted the second iteration of the bilateral navy exercise AUSINDEX in June 2017, so we’ll continue down that path.
Do you have the sense that your participation in Malabar will resume a little later, or do you have a sense that India’s hesitation has to do with China?
•That’s something obviously you’ll have to ask India about. I know that AUSINDEX is a tangible demonstration of strengthening defence cooperation between Australia and India and that was envisaged in the framework for security cooperation that the Australian and Indian Prime Ministers announced in 2014. And Australia and India also maintain a regular programme of dialogue and reciprocal ship visits and the like. Obviously, we remain interested in participating in the exercise and we just haven’t received an invitation from India to take part. So that’s really a matter for India.
Is there any truth in the view that a full-fledged Quad arrangement will be seen as a kind of security threat in Beijing, an attempt to contain its rise? Is that a factor that the government has considered? Has it done anything to allay Chinese…
•We’re committed to our engagement with Asia. We’re committed to ASEAN’s centrality to regional architecture. We have a very strong relationship and comprehensive strategic partnership with China. But all countries in the region have different groupings. They are members of different groups reflecting shared interests, common values, strategic issues and the like. China is a member of a number of groupings to which Australia is not a part and I think the Quad is just a natural extension of the two trilaterals that are currently in existence – Australia, Japan and the U.S., and India, Japan and the U.S. We are robust democracies, we do share a common world view and we are increasingly close and strategic partners.
How do you respond to the view that there has been a weakening in the U.S.’s resolve in staying engaged with Asia, particularly South East Asia? And that this has only got worse with the advent of Donald Trump?
•The U.S. has been the dominant power in our region throughout post-Second World War history. And today, the relative strategic weight of China and other regional powers, including India, is growing. Like all significant powers, China will seek to influence the region to suit its own interests. As will India, and as other nations will do. It will be a complex and contested region. The U.S. has indicated a keenness to remain deeply engaged in the region. The national security statement of recent times speaks about the Indo-Pacific as an area of significant priority for U.S. foreign policy.
Shifting to the India Economic Strategy, we learn that it’s already been drafted. What is the next step? Does it get discussed in government, and when does it get unveiled formally? Can you give us a sense of this?
•Sure. I have met with the author, Peter Varghese. Our economic interests are focussed on ensuring India as a priority economic partner. India is already our seventh largest trading partner in terms of two-way trade. Two-way trade and investment are growing but I think we should aspire for much more. I have high ambitions for our India Economic Strategy. It’s about identifying practical measures, deepening trade and investment ties, building on similarities between our economies and providing a roadmap to cement Australia as a priority economic partner for India out to 2035. What I anticipate is that we’ll launch the strategy later this year.
•You’ll note that last week we announced we will be opening a consulate general in Kolkata. That will be our fourth post in India alongside New Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai and it is a recognition of India’s importance to Australia as a key economic partner. The consulate general in Kolkata in particular will be helping Australian businesses work with India to grow your mining sector.
But what is the process now? Does the India Economic Strategy document get accepted as it is? Does it go to Cabinet?
•It was commissioned by the Prime Minister, so presumably the Prime Minister will then determine how broadly he will debate it and discuss it. It could be with the National Security Committee, a subcommittee of Cabinet, it could be with the broader Cabinet. But I would think the Prime Minister would be looking for input from many government ministers.
Moving to education, Australia has emerged as something of a big magnet for foreign students, many of them from India. But a vast majority of Indian students who arrive here have at least one eye on getting employed here after they finish their course. At one level, this is a reflection of the employment opportunities that Australia has to offer. But it also suggests that the education system here would do well to attract more students only for the academic programme.
•Well, India is a large source of skilled migrants and the second largest source of international students — I think something like 68,000. So, we clearly welcome Indian students to study in Australia. But we also welcome skilled migrants. So, I think it’s a question of ensuring that we both get the balance right. That there are opportunities in Australia, we certainly want to see skilled migrants here, but we also see our international education sector as a significant part of the Australian economy. I think we’re managing to balance these competing interests. In the education sector, actually our flagship New Colombo Plan is supporting more Australian students to study abroad, so there is much more two-way exchange than there has been in the past. This year we are expecting about 1,500 Australian undergraduates to study in India. And our universities support other fellowships at the postgraduate level, Australia Awards scholarships are available for Indian students…
So how much money has been earmarked for this scholarship scheme? How does Australia hope to benefit from this?
•The New Colombo Plan is about providing opportunities for Australian undergraduates to undertake part of their study in a country in our region. Forty locations have partnered with us on the New Colombo Plan and so Australian students have this opportunity to live, study and undertake internships. It will give them an unparalleled opportunity to understand the region in which we live, become more aware of the culture, political, economic, social side of the countries in the Indo-Pacific. And most certainly it will enable them to create networks and connections that hopefully will last a lifetime.
It’s been a couple of years since the India-Australia nuclear agreement was inked and we still don’t have a commercial contract on the table. Do you have any idea if there are any holdups on this account?
•I understand that commercial negotiations for the supply of uranium to India are ongoing between Australia uranium exporters and Indian uranium customers. I know the first shipment of a sample for testing purposes took place in July 2017. We put in place the framework for Australian uranium producers to engage with Indian uranium customers. The timelines, details and negotiations for future bulk exports of Australian uranium to India are commercial matters. But most certainly the Australian government remains prepared to support commercial shipment to India.
Australia was really quick to make a statement on the U.S. pull out from the Iran deal. Is that significant that you came out against an ally so quickly and in such a clear and forthright manner?
•No. It’s consistent with what we’ve been saying ever since the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] was finalised. Australia has recognised that it’s by no means a perfect agreement but in the absence of a viable alternative, we supported the JCPOA. I have never been accused of being quick, off the mark on commenting on foreign matters before [laughs], but it’s just consistent with the approach we have taken. I had spoken to the U.S. National Security Adviser and the U.S. Secretary of State. They were well aware of the position that we would take. So, having informed our U.S. partner privately, we responded to requests for public comment.
French President Emmanuel Macron talked about a Paris-Delhi-Canberra axis, as a regional structure. Is it something that this Australian government has ever put its mind to as a possibility?
•President Macron most certainly spoke of the complementarities, if I could put it that way, between France, India and Australia, in our part of the world. France, of course, has interests in both the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. Australia and India have complementary interests in the Indian Ocean.
•We have considered these levels of cooperation through the Indian Ocean Rim Association, where Australia and India are members and France is a dialogue partner. So France’s involvement in the Indian Ocean is not new but perhaps it is the first time we have heard a French President articulate the idea of a three-way partnership between Australia, India and France in relation to the Indian Ocean.
📰 Cancel air tickets within 24 hours of booking for free, proposes draft passenger charter
Draft passenger charter moots free cancellation of air tickets within 24 hours of booking
•If you are the kind of person who likes to make impulsive travel plans, only to regret at leisure when circumstances force you to cancel, you may find some relief in the draft passenger charter made public by the Ministry of Civil Aviation on Tuesday.
•According to a key provision in the charter, air travellers can cancel their tickets free of cost within 24 hours of booking, and four days (or 96 hours) before the scheduled departure.
•The draft charter will be open for stakeholders’ consultation for 30 days. The Ministry aims to notify the final version within two months, after which domestic airlines will have to comply with its provisions.
•The draft charter also lays down compensation norms for passengers. It proposes that in case a passenger is informed about a flight cancellation between two weeks to 24 hours before the flight, the airline must either offer an alternate flight that departs within two hours of the scheduled departure of the flight booked originally, or refund the ticket.
•If the airline doesn’t inform passengers about a cancelled flight up to 24 hours of the scheduled departure time, the airline will have to refund the full value of the air ticket.
•Similarly, in case of delays communicated more than 24 hours before the scheduled departure, the airline must offer an option of a full refund of the ticket cost if the delay is for more than four hours. If the delay results in the flight departing the next day, then the airline will have to offer a free hotel stay. These norms will be applicable only if the delay is due to the fault of the airline, and not if it is caused by bad weather. If a delay results in a passenger missing a connecting flight, then the airline will have to pay ₹5,000 to ₹20,000.
•In case of loss of baggage, the minimum compensation proposed is ₹3,000 per kg. If baggage is delayed or damaged, the airline is liable to pay ₹1,000 per kg. The draft also suggests that an airline and its agents should not levy a cancellation charge that is more than the sum of basic fare and fuel surcharge.
•The Ministry has also proposed that passengers not be made to pay extra for a correction in their names if the error is pointed out within 24 hours of making a reservation, provided the rectification is required for no more than three characters.
•If the passenger doesn’t receive the due compensation, grievances can be filed on the Ministry’s AirSewa app or at the Directorate General of Civil Aviation portal.
Airlines seek flexibility
•The charter, however, needs to be accepted by the airlines for it to become a reality. Industry sources said that during the consultations with the government, they had sought flexibility in the manner of compensation, such as through travel coupons instead of a complete refund.
•“The draft charter brings together the rights and privileges of passengers,” said Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha at a press conference.
•Travel portal Yatra.com welcomed the proposal. "We are sure that the industry will respond positively to these measures and adopt a more transparent and accountable approach towards customer experience,” said a spokesperson. “Consumer protection has been enhanced through significant compensation for airline service failures. However, implementation is the key. Educating passengers about rights must be accompanied by an oversight regime which ensures that airlines comply," said aviation think tank CAPA.
•“Some of the proposed changes would be difficult, impractical, or cost-prohibitive to implement,” said a Vistara spokesperson. “They could cause airfares to rise for all, in a price-sensitive country where average airfares are amongst the lowest in the world.”
📰 Worsening air quality major cause of premature deaths, study finds
The estimates should not be perceived as instant deaths, said the report, clarifying that they represent premature (earlier than the expected lifetime of the Indian population) deaths due to chronic exposure from pollution.
•Worsening air quality in the last two decades has emerged as one of the major reasons for high numbers of premature deaths, says a new study conducted in 11 north Indian cities.
•The findings titled ‘Know what you breathe’, released here on Tuesday, were researched by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi in collaboration with environmental NGO Centre for Environment and Energy Development (CEED). The report found annual mortality linked to air pollution to be in the range of 150-300 persons per 1 lakh population.
•The study was conducted in seven cities of Uttar Pradesh (Allahabad, Kanpur, Lucknow, Meerut, Varanasi and Gorakhpur), three cities of Bihar (Patna, Gaya and Muzaffarpur), and the capital of Jharkhand, Ranchi.
•Kanpur recorded the highest number of premature deaths per year (4,173) due to chronic exposure to air pollution, followed by Lucknow (4,127), Agra (2,421), Meerut (2,044), Varanasi (1,581), Allahabad (1,443) and Gorakhpur (914).
•The study calculated the annual “mortality burden” through averages of recorded deaths caused due to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Acute Lower Respiratory Infection (ALRI), coronary disease, stroke, and lung cancer, in these cities. COPD was the largest cause of the deaths (at 29.7%) and lung cancer the lowest (0.6%).
•The largest share in total burden was attributed to ALRI in Agra and Meerut, and to COPD in Allahabad, Gaya, Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Lucknow, Patna, Muzaffarpur and Varanasi.
•The estimates should not be perceived as instant deaths, said the report, clarifying that they represent premature (earlier than the expected lifetime of the Indian population) deaths due to chronic exposure from pollution. However, “it isn’t possible to validate these estimates, as cause-specific mortality data do not exist in India,” said the report authored by Dr. Sagnik Dey, Associate Professor, Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, IIT-Delhi.
•Premature mortality burden would reduce by 14%-28% annually with the achievement of Indian air quality standards in these cities, the report said.
•Using satellite-based high-resolution PM2.5 database to generate particulate matter statistics for the past 17 years, the report concludes that the mean annual ambient fine particulate matter concentration was 75-120% higher than the Indian annual air quality standard in the 10 of the 11 cities. In Ranchi, the mean annual ambient PM2.5 exposure was 12.5% higher than the Indian standard.
•The report found levels of PM2.5 exposure moving downward from west to east of the Indo-Gangetic plain with the highest proliferation in Varanasi and the lowest in Ranchi. The report has indicated an increase of 28.5 microgram / m3 in PM 2.5 in the last 17 years in Varanasi.
•The annual particular matter exposure was the highest in Meerut, with an “alarming” figure of 99.2 ug/M3 (microgram per cubic metre), followed by Agra (91) and Lucknow (83.5).
•The study has attibuted residential (cooking, heating and lighting) sources as the largest contributers to annual ambient PM2.5 concentration (73.8%) followed by industry (11.7%), transport (9.8%) and energy sectors (4.6%).
•Ankita Jyoti, senior programme officer at CEED said, “the analysis of aerosol composition in our study indicates a higher percentage of sulphates, organic carbons and black carbon, which are emitted primarily from anthropogenic sources.”
•A high rate of unplanned urbanisation is the main anthropogenic source of rapid increase in the pollution levels, she added.
•The study said that a “very high exposure” to air pollution was recorded during post-monsoon (October-November) and winter (December-February) seasons.
•Abhishek Pratap, programme director of CEED, said, “We are witnessing a public health emergency in our cities as polluting air is choking our lungs.”
•The States and the Union government need to take note of this alarming situation and create a national clean air action plan which is ambitious, effective and focuses on time-bound implementation, he added.
📰 Trade in tokay geckos continues in Bengal
False hype raised on medicinal value
•Even as the International Day for Biological Diversity was celebrated on Tuesday, the Border Security Force (BSF) seized three tokay geckos from West Bengal’s Malda and Murshidabad districts. The smugglers were carrying the geckos in wire mesh cages concealed in nylon carrybags when they were intercepted by a BSF patrol party and handed over to the Divisional Forest Officer, Malda. While six tokay geckos have been seized by the South Bengal Frontier of the BSF in 2018, the Siliguri Frontier of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) in north Bengal seized 24 tokay geckos between November 2017 and April 2018.
More than 100
•The tokay gecko or gekko gecko, a lizard species with orange-spotted blue-grey skin, is protected under the Schedule III of the Indian Wildlife Protection Act. Data made available by the SSB says more than 100 tokay geckos were seized between 2014 and 2017 across its different frontiers.
•Abrar Ahmed, an expert on wildlife smuggling and former consultant with NGO Traffic International, which monitors trade in wildlife, said that seizures at border checkpoints would yield no results unless there was some intervention at the forests and habitats from where the animal was seized. He added that the smugglers raised false hype about the medicinal value of these wildlife species to create a demand for them both within and outside India.
•Agni Mitra, Regional Deputy Director, Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, a statutory government body, said that it was because of the spurt in smuggling that tokay geckos were brought under the Schedule III. He said geckos above 13 cm in length and over 350 grams in weight fetch exorbitantly high prices in China and parts of South Asia.
📰 Model law for contract farming
Aims at reducing farmers’ risks
•After two drafts that received wide criticism from both industry and farmers groups, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Sharma released the model law on Tuesday. The law is aimed at reducing farmers’ risks by creating an assured market for their produce at a pre-agreed price, while encouraging investment from agribusiness and food processing industries by enhancing productivity and cost efficiency. It provides for State-level boards to be set-up to promote and facilitate — rather than regulate — contract farming, and sets out a framework for registering and recording agreements. It also provides for a dispute settlement authority. The model law stipulates that the sponsor will not be allowed to build any permanent structure on the farmers’ land.
•“In India, 86% of farmers fall into the small and marginal category,” said Ashok Dalwai, CEO, National Rainfed Area Authority, who chaired the committee that drafted the model law. “The average farm size is 1.15 hectares, so there is no efficiency of scale.” While collectivisation would improve efficiency, consolidation of farm lands is not possible under the Indian system, he said. “Instead, the produce of farmers needs to be aggregated,” he explained.
📰 The Nipah test
Age-old practices of infection control are crucial to limit the deadly outbreak
•The outbreak of the deadly Nipah virus around Kozhikode, Kerala, is a test of India’s capacity to respond to public health emergencies. In 2018, the World Health Organisation listed Nipah as one of the 10 priority pathogens needing urgent research, given its ability to trigger lethal outbreaks and the lack of drugs available against it. As an RNA (ribonucleic acid) virus, Nipah has an exceptional rate of mutation — that is, it can easily adapt to spread more efficiently among humans than it does now. Such an adaptation would result in a truly dangerous microbe. Nipah already kills up to 70% of those it infects, through a mix of symptoms that include encephalitis, a brain inflammation marked by a coma state, disorientation, and long-lasting after-effects, such as convulsions, in those who survive. Thankfully, in most outbreaks in South Asia so far the virus has displayed a “stuttering chain of transmission”. This means that once the virus spreads from fruit bats, its natural reservoir, to humans, it moves mainly to people in close contact with patients, such as hospital staff and family caregivers. But these caregivers are at high risk, because the sicker the patients become, the more virus they secrete. Preliminary reports suggest that the Kozhikode outbreak is also displaying a stuttering chain of transmission. Of the 11 confirmed Nipah fatalities, three were from the same family. While researchers are still investigating how they were exposed, a bat colony living in a well in the family’s yard is a strong suspect.
•This fits in with how outbreaks have historically begun in the subcontinent. In a 2007 outbreak in Nadia, West Bengal, for example, patient zero is believed to have acquired the virus from palm liquor contaminated by bat droppings. The next wave of infections have historically occurred among close contacts and caregivers, such as nurses; the same pattern has been detected in Kozhikode as well. But these are preliminary reports, and new information may change what we know about the present virus. Several patients with symptoms of infection are under observation. Only when clinical investigations are complete can it be determined how contagious the virus really is. If it is found travelling over long distances, the authorities will have to be ready with strategies to combat its spread. The good news is that Kerala’s public health systems have acted with extraordinary efficiency so far. Doctors identified the virus in the very second patient, a diagnostic speed unrivalled in developing countries. This must be commended. But big challenges remain. The death of a nurse shows that health-care workers may not be taking adequate precautions when dealing with patients, by using masks and following a strict hand-wash regimen. The virus has no specific treatment. The best defences against it are the age-old principles of infection control, which Indian hospitals have not mastered as yet. Kerala’s health authorities must ensure these principles are widely adopted, and no preventable transmission takes place.
📰 A sweet break on Asian Highway 1
On an Assam milk cooperative’s road to growth
•The highway in the Northeast that is most written about is perhaps NH39 – now NH2 – that meanders through Nagaland and Manipur and ends at Moreh on the Myanmar border. But in the nearly 28 years of my reporting career, it is NH37 that has yielded a lot of stories, and not only because it takes one to the Kaziranga National Park.
•Much of NH37 that ran from Goalpara in western Assam to Roing in Arunachal Pradesh is now part of NH27, India’s second longest highway from Porbandar in Gujarat to Silchar in southern Assam. Locals, though, refuse to acknowledge the new number, preferring the fancier Asian Highway 1 instead.
•NH37 is the lifeline for much of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Manipur. In three decades, it has changed from a potholed single lane to a fairly good two-lane road to a concrete four-lane highway that is part of the East-West Corridor, enabling vehicles to zoom at more than 100 kmph. But speed hasn’t stopped many users of this highway, like me, from taking a break at a milk product outlet of Sitajakhala Dugdha Utpadak Samabai Samiti Ltd., a cooperative society.
•Sitajakhala derives its name from a jakhala (ladder) that Sita from the Ramayana is believed to have used to fetch water from the river Kiling in the vicinity. The spot on a hillock is near the cooperative society’s production unit at Amlighat, about 60 km east of Guwahati. Amlighat is between Jagiroad, once the byword for pollution because of a paper mill, and Nellie, where more than 2,000 migrant Muslims were massacred in 1983 at the height of the Assam agitation. Sitajakhala used to be a modest set-up in the 1990s.
•My travel on NH37 has often been dictated by insurgency, ethnic conflicts and annual floods in districts such as Morigaon where Sitajakhala is situated. I have hardly had time off these “bigger issues” to see the Amul-like growth story of the cooperative society. But returning from Kaziranga a few days ago, I stopped at Sitajakhala’s sweets and snacks outlet on the highway. Ranjib Sharma, the society’s chairman, narrated how Sitajakhala had started in 1961 with 17 cattle farmers. Today, 900 members produce 15,000 litres of milk per day to help Sitajakhala record a turnover of ₹50 crore. The business took off after the society launched the Gonand brand in 2015, adding milk products to pasteurised milk.
•The white revolution has indeed changed the area where the red of blood once flowed.
📰 How agri credit is missing those who really need it
Small farmers are getting only 30-40% of loans meant for the sector, says RBI report
•The small and marginal farmers are missing out on the bulk of agricultural credit, as per information provided by the Reserve Bank of India, which showed they are receiving only 30-40% of loans meant for the sector.
•As per a report submitted by the RBI to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture in response to its queries, only 42.2% of agricultural credit disbursed in 2016-17 went to small and marginal farmers. The report was accessed by The Hindu.
•“There are two ways of seeing this,” Bharat Ramaswami, Professor at the Indian Statistical Institute and agricultural economy expert said. “One is that it is not equitable, where some farmers, the larger ones and the ones closer to urban areas, are over-represented in terms of access to credit. Insofar as the priority sector lending mandates are concerned, the mandate is not to reach a particular type of farmer. So, the programme itself is not targeted.”
Lending costs
•The RBI’s rules are that 18% of a bank’s Adjusted Net Bank Credit must go to the agricultural sector and within this, 8% must go to small and marginal farmers. While the banking sector has overall met this limit, there is still an inherent targeting problem arising out of the costs of lending to the sector. “The priority sector lending mandate is in place because it is felt that banks would not otherwise lend as much to this sector,” Mr. Ramaswami added. “So, there are some costs of lending to this sector, and if they are not given this mandate, because of this cost they would not lend as much to the agricultural sector as the government would like them to.”
•What then happens, he explained, is that banks choose to lend to those areas where the cost of lending is lower, such as those close to urban areas, or to those farmers who are more credit-worthy. That is, the medium and large farmers.
•The RBI data backs up this assertion, showing that only 34.5% of agricultural credit outstanding as of 2017 has gone to rural farmers.
•The remaining has gone to semi-urban, urban, and metropolitan farmers.
•“The point is that these farmers would get credit even without the priority sector lending mandate,” Mr. Ramaswami said.
•“It tells you that this calls for a deeper examination of the priority sector lending mandates.”
•The data also shows that the onus of providing agricultural credit is falling on the public sector banks, with 12 out of 23 of the private sector banks for which data is available having failed to meet the 18% lending target for the agricultural sector in 2017.
•“The point is that these farmers would get credit even without the priority sector lending mandate,” Mr Ramaswami said. “It tells you that this calls for a deeper examination of the priority sector lending mandates. Maybe the limit can be reduced, but the rules can be made stricter about to whom the loans are given to.”
•The data also shows that the onus of providing agricultural credit is falling on the public sector banks, with 12 out of 23 of the private sector banks for which data is available having failed to meet the 18% lending target for the agricultural sector in 2017. This number was as high as 16 in 2015.
•The data also shows a great disparity of performance between states, with some states such as Meghalaya giving 93.6% of its agricultural credit to small and marginal farmers, while other states like Sikkim have this proportion as low as 1.67%. While some of this could be explained by the distribution of farmer types in these states, a large part of the discrepancy could be due to a targeting problem.
📰 Humans form only a minuscule part of life on earth
A first-of-its-kind census says they have outsize influence on fellow creatures
•When you weigh all life on the earth, billions of humans don’t amount to much compared to trees, earthworms or even viruses. But we really know how to throw what little weight we have around, according to a first-of-its-kind global census of the footprint of life on the planet.
•The planet’s real heavyweights are plants.
Plants outweigh all
•They outweigh people by about 7,500 to 1, and make up more than 80% of the world’s biomass, a study in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences said.
•Bacteria are nearly 13% of the world’s biomass. Fungi yeast, mold and mushrooms make up about 2%. These estimates aren’t very exact, the real numbers could be more or less, but they give a sense of proportion, said study lead author Ron Milo, a biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.
•“The fact that the biomass of fungi exceeds that of all animals sort of puts us in our place,” said Harvard evolutionary biology professor James Hanken, who wasn’t part of the study.
•Still, humans have an outsized influence on its more massive fellow creatures. Since civilization started, humans helped cut the total weight of plants by half and wild mammals by 85%, the study said.
Domesticated animals
•Now domesticated cattle and pigs outweigh all wild mammals by 14 to 1, while the world’s chickens are triple the weight of all the wild birds. Instead of children’s books about elephants and lions, a more honest representation of Earth’s animals would be “a cow next to another cow, next to another cow next to a chicken,” Mr. Milo said.
•Mr. Milo and colleagues took earlier research that looked at biomass for different types of life, combined them, factored in climate, geography and other environmental issues, to come up with a planetwide look at the scale of life on the planet. Taking water out of the equation and measuring only dry carbon makes it easier for scientists to compare species. About one-sixth the weight of a human is dry carbon. Humans are about two-thirds water.
•Duke University conservation scientist Stuart Pimm called the study “a very important compilation of big numbers that speak to the nature of our world and the impact we humans have on it.”
