📰 Strengthening vaccine trust
Creative approaches rooted in evidence can help build confidence in vaccines
•India has found its footing in its campaign to vaccinate citizens against COVID-19. About 78% of the adult population has received one dose and more than 36% has received both doses. This is great news as vaccination, together with face masks and social distancing, is a powerful tool for returning to normalcy.
•Recent evidence indicates that acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines in India is among the highest in the world. This is a testament to those who have been working tirelessly for months within communities. However, even small pockets of unvaccinated individuals can threaten the success of an immunisation campaign. This is especially true for a highly transmissible virus like the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2. Misinformation about vaccines, in particular, can erode vaccine confidence. In 2017-2019, false rumours about the measles-rubella vaccine spread through social media and led to a spike in vaccine refusals in some areas. Also, with daily confirmed cases as low as they are now, enthusiasm to get vaccinated could wane. This is why we need to solidify vaccine confidence now.
Power of trust
•Vaccine confidence exists on a spectrum. There are some who are against all vaccines. But there are also many who remain on the fence. Perhaps they have concerns about the speed with which the vaccines were developed or they received a message from a trusted family member or friend about the ingredients of the vaccine. The COVID-19 vaccines used in India are safe and effective, especially in preventing severe outcomes. And so, many of us may feel the urge to refute each and every one of these concerns. For those who remain sceptical, however, such arguments may feel patronising and could backfire. Conversations around vaccination, rather, should stem from a place of respect, empathy and understanding and should avoid disparaging language. This helps build trust — the key to vaccine confidence. In addition, when speaking with peers about misinformation, it helps to acknowledge that it is sometimes difficult in the current context to know what is true and what is not. Providing data from a trusted source, like government agencies or academic institutions, can also help correct misperceptions about vaccines.
•Framing vaccination as the default normative behaviour can help encourage those who have doubts. Many of us have already been doing this when we ask our friends and family, “Teeka lagwaya, na?” or “You’ve been vaccinated, right?” By asking this simple question, we are setting expectations for those around us. Vaccination is the norm. We are asked the question and we in turn ask others too.
•The messenger is also important for building trust. Individuals are more likely to listen to someone from their own background or area. In many villages, all the eligible individuals have been vaccinated. In some cases, someone within the community — a sarpanch or a highly respected individual — got vaccinated and encouraged others to do so as well. Doctors and health workers are also often trusted sources of information about health decisions. Actors and sportspersons are also powerful spokespersons.
A campaign that appeals to people
•The COVID-19 immunisation campaign it is not the first large-scale vaccination effort in India. In 2014, India was declared polio free. This achievement could not have been possible without the simple campaign, ‘Do boond zindagi ki‘ or ‘Two drops of life’. The message was hopeful and appealed to Indians. A strong endorsement from celebrities and the engagement of community leaders propelled the message. The ongoing campaign to vaccinate India requires similar energy.
•An effective response to any health emergency requires a multidisciplinary approach. And so, creatives and public health experts must work closely together to bolster vaccine confidence. Bollywood is uniquely positioned to tap into the Indian psyche through effective storytelling. This is important because not everyone connects in the same way with facts and figures. We recently launched a campaign with creative support provided by the leading marketing agency Wieden+Kennedy, Delhi, centered around the question everyone is already asking: “Teeka lagwaya, na?” We hope to see more campaigns in the future. Vaccines bring the hope of returning to normalcy. Normalcy is not just survival, but also about fearless living, of bringing joy back into our lives and caring for others. These are essential considerations for effective, narrative-based communication around vaccines.
The Supreme Court’s judgment alters a terrible legal landscape that has seen the blatant misuse of the UAPA
•A judgment of the Supreme Court of India on October 28, 2021 has immense potential to reclaim the idea of personal liberty and human dignity. In Thwaha Fasal vs Union of India, the Court has acted in its introspective jurisdiction and deconstructed the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) with a great sense of legal realism. This paves the way for a formidable judicial authority against blatant misuse of this draconian law.
The background
•In this case from Kerala, there are three accused. The third among them is absconding. The police registered the case and later the investigation was handed over to the National Investigation Agency (NIA). The accused were in their twenties when arrested on November 1, 2019. During the investigation, some materials containing radical literature were found, which included a book on caste issues in India and a translation of the dissent notes written by Rosa Luxemburg to Lenin. There were also leaflets that were allegedly related to Maoist organisations.
•Thus, the provisions of the UAPA were invoked. Against the first accused, Allen Shuaib, offences under Sections 38 and 39 of the UAPA and 120B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) were alleged. Section 38 deals with “offence relating to membership of a terrorist organisation” and Section 39 deals with “offence relating to support given to a terrorist organisation.” Section 120B of the IPC is the penal provision on criminal conspiracy. Against the second accused, Thwaha Fasal, over and above these charges, Section 13 of the UAPA was alleged — which is the provision about punishment for unlawful activities. Both the accused were students and there were no allegations of any overt act of violence. According to the accused, the charges were an attempt to label them as terrorists, based on the intellectual and ideological inclinations attributed to them.
Judicial trajectory
•The case had a curious trajectory. After initial rejection of the pleas, the trial judge granted bail to both the accused in September 2020. By that time, the students had completed more than 10 months in prison. The High Court, in appeal, while confirming the bail of Allen, chose to set aside the bail granted to Thwaha. The matter then reached the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, after a comprehensive examination, upheld the trial judge’s finding that the materials, prima facie, do not show any “intention on the part of both the accused to further the activities of the terrorist organisation”. It found fault with the High Court for not venturing to record, prima facie, findings regarding charges against Thwaha, whose bail was set aside by the High Court. The top court confirmed the bail granted to both the students. Now, they have been set free.
•The Supreme Court was emphatic and liberal when it said that mere association with a terrorist organisation is not sufficient to attract the offences alleged. Unless and until the association and the support were “with intention of furthering the activities of a terrorist organisation”, offence under Section 38 or Section 39 is not made out, said the Court. Mere possession of documents or books by the accused at a formative young age, or even their fascination for an ideology, does not ipso facto or ipso jure make out an offence, the Court ruled.
•The judgment can act as an effective admonition against a suppressive regime. It also exposes the hypocrisy of the law, the UAPA. Section 43D(5) of the UAPA says that for many of the offences under the Act, bail should not be granted, if “on perusal of the case diary or the report (of the investigation)… there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accusation … is prima facie true”. Thus, the Act prompts the Court to consider the version of the prosecution alone while deciding the question of bail. Unlike the Criminal Procedure Code, the UAPA, by virtue of the proviso to Section 43D(2), permits keeping a person in prison for up to 180 days, without even filing a charge sheet. Thus, the statute prevents a comprehensive examination of the facts of the case on the one hand, and prolongs the trial indefinitely by keeping the accused in prison on the other.
Presumption of guilt
•Instead of presumption of innocence, the UAPA holds presumption of guilt of the accused. Section 43E of the Act expressly says about “presumption as to the offences”. According to Section 43D(5), jail is the rule and bail is often not even an exception. The Court, in Thwaha Fasal, refused to construct this Section in a narrow and restrictive sense. This analysis has to some extent, liberalised an otherwise illiberal bail clause. In the process, the Court has also tried to mitigate the egregious error committed by a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court in National Investigation Agency vs Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali (2019) that interpreted the same provision.
•In Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali, the Court said that by virtue of Section 43D(5) of UAPA, the burden is on the accused to show that the prosecution case is not prima facie true. The proposition in Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali is that the bail court should not even investigate deeply into the materials and evidence and should consider the bail plea, primarily based on the nature of allegations, for, according to the Court, Section 43D(5) prohibits a thorough and deeper examination. As such, in several cases, bail pleas were rejected relying on Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali, despite the strong indications that the evidence itself was false or fabricated. Many intellectuals including Sudha Bharadwaj and Siddique Kappan were denied bail based on a narrow interpretation of the bail provision as done in Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali. Stan Swamy was another victim of this provision and its fallacious reading.
•The top court has now altered this terrible legal landscape. For doing so, the Court also relied on a later three-judge Bench decision in Union of India vs K.A. Najeeb (2021). In K.A. Najeeb, the larger Bench said that even the stringent provisions under Section 43D(5) do not curtail the power of the constitutional court to grant bail on the ground of violation of fundamental rights.
•The text of the draconian laws sometimes poses immense challenge to the courts by limiting the space for judicial discretion and adjudication. This is more evident in the context of bail. The courts usually adopt two mutually contradictory methods in dealing with such tough provisions. One is to read and apply the provision literally and mechanically which has the effect of curtailing the individual freedom as intended by the makers of the law. In contrast to this approach, there could be a constitutional reading of the statute, which perceives the issues in a human rights angle and tries to mitigate the rigour of the vicious content of the law. The former approach is reflected in Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali and the latter in Thwaha Fasal. In Thwaha Fasal, the Court has asserted the primacy of judicial process over the text of the enactment, by way of an interpretative exercise.
Delhi riots case
•On June 15, 2021, the Delhi High Court granted bail to student activists Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita and Asif Iqbal Tanha who were charged under the UAPA for alleged connections with the Delhi riots. In an appeal by the Delhi police, unfortunately, the Supreme Court said that the well-reasoned judgment of the High Court shall not be treated as a precedent.
•The Thwaha Fasal judgment has, by implication, legitimised the methodology in the Delhi High Court verdict that ventured to examine the content of the charge instead of swallowing the prosecution’s story. It is this judicial radicalism that builds an emancipatory legal tool. The judgment should be invoked to release other political prisoners in the country who have been denied bail either due to the harshness of the law or due to the follies in understanding the law or both.
📰 The long road to timely MGNREGA payments
There remain delays in the stage where the Central government transfers wages to the workers’ accounts
•There is a famous parable of the 13th century mystic Mullah Nasruddin. He was once spotted under a street light searching frantically for a key that he had lost. A passer-by noticed the frazzled Nasruddin and stopped to help him. After both of them spent a long time searching for the key, the exasperated passer-by asked Nasruddin if he was sure that he had dropped his key there. Pointing to his house far away, Nasruddin said that he had, in fact, lost the key near his house. Agitated, the passer-by shouted at Nasruddin: “If you lost the key near your house, why are you wasting time searching for your key here?” To which Nasruddin, with no sense of irony, responded, “There is no light near my house but there is light here, so I am searching for the lost key here.”
Delays in payments
•This parable captures the essence of wage payment delays under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Eight crore MGNREGA wage transactions were pending on Diwali. The People’s Action for Employment Guarantee (PAEG) recently released a tracker with important metrics on MGNREGA implementation. It showed that funds allocation this financial year (FY) is 34% lower than the revised budget allocation of last year. And this year’s funds have been exhausted. The Ministry of Rural Development issued a press release in response to these stating, “Currently Rs.8921 crore funds are available which can meet the wage liability...” This statement is misleading as the Ministry has not accounted for pending arrears of ₹17,543 crore from previous years. In a welcome move since the media reports, the Chief Ministers of Odisha and Tamil Nadu wrote to the Prime Minister seeking additional funds for MGNREGA.
•There is ample evidence by now, including an admission by the Ministry of Finance, that delays in wage payments are a consequence of insufficient funds. There are two stages in the wage payment process. In Stage 1, States must electronically send invoices, also called FTOs, to the Central government within eight days of completion of work at a worksite. These invoices contain essential worker details like their names and bank account numbers. The Central government then processes the invoices and transfers wages directly to the workers’ accounts. This is called Stage 2 and is the Central government’s responsibility that must be completed within seven days after Stage 1. Since Supreme Court orders in 2018, Stage 1 delays have reduced while Stage 2 delays continue. As per the Act, if Stage 1 plus Stage 2 exceeds 15 days, then workers are entitled to a delay compensation for each day’s delay. However, in violation of the Act and the Supreme Court’s orders, no delay compensation for Stage 2 is even being calculated. Instead of ensuring sufficient funds for timely payments, the Central government has repeatedly tinkered with the payment architecture as if payment delays are an artefact of technological hurdles. The Nasruddin parable appeared in a new avatar this year. Earlier, the invoices were not segregated by caste. On March 2, the Central government issued a circular to segregate invoices based on the caste of workers (Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and ‘Others’).
•In order to investigate Stage 2 delays and the impact of caste-based invoices, as part of LibTech India, we released a report called ‘Heavy Wait’. We analysed 18 lakh invoices across 10 States from April to September. In our sample, Stage 2 was completed only for 29% of the invoices within the mandated seven-day period. In fact, for nearly two-thirds of the transactions in Jharkhand and more than half the transactions in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal, Stage 2 exceeded 15 days. There was also a steady increase in Stage 2 delays from July to September indicating depletion of funds. If the Central government’s recent claims of allocations being adequate are true, then what is the explanation for such massive delays in wage payments?
Caste-based segregation
•There were significant variations in delays by caste. While 46% of payments to SC workers and 37% for ST workers were completed in the mandated seven-day period, it was a dismal 26% for non-SC/ST workers. The negative impact of caste-based segregation was felt acutely in poorer States such as Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal. For instance, Stage 2 was completed in seven days for only half the transactions for SC/ST workers in Madhya Pradesh. This was much worse for non-SC/ST workers in Madhya Pradesh for whom only 7% of transactions were completed in that period. In addition to such stark differences, in West Bengal, the Central government kept pending nearly 45% of the wages beyond 15 days as on October 13.
•As this newspaper reported earlier, caste-based segregation has also resulted in tensions at worksites. It had also resulted in a threefold increase of workload for computer operators at blocks. Our Right to Information request to access the circular met with a hazy response. When questioned by the media earlier about this move, the Central government said that “For better accounting purposes, it has been decided, in consultation with the Department of Expenditure, to have a category-wise (SC, ST and others) wage payment system.” No doubt, knowing the earnings of SC/ST households is useful. But it could have been done after the wages were paid. Toying with the Act using the veil of better accounting is illegal. After critical media reportage, the Central government, in a welcome move, has revoked the caste-based segregation of wage payments. However, the Central government has not assumed any accountability by paying compensation for delays despite the evident damage caused by caste-based segregation of payments.
•Additionally, in our large sample analysis, we found no difference in the time taken for payments through the Aadhaar Payment Bridge Systems (APBS) and traditional account-based payments. In fact, APBS has given rise to a litany of complicated problems like misdirected payments and payment failures due to erroneous Aadhaar mapping with the payment software. Misdirected payments happen when one person’s Aadhaar gets linked to somebody else’s bank account. These problems are difficult to resolve even for bank and block officials resulting in increased hardships for workers. These minimally warrant an impartial, independent assessment and audit of the payment systems.
•Lost keys cannot be found where they were not lost in the first place. In the same vein, technical fixes cannot be substitutes for political will. Official data show that the work demand this year is similar to that of last year. As such, at least ₹50,000 crore needs to be allocated urgently and the Central government, in compliance with Supreme Court orders, must automatically calculate and pay the workers their entitled delay compensation.
📰 AUKUS could rock China’s boat in the Indo-Pacific
While there is nothing surprising about AUKUS, a Pacific-centric orientation has advantages in the context of China
•The trilateral security agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States (AUKUS) continues to be in the news. At the COP26 meeting at Glasgow, U.S. President Joe Biden tried to smoothen ruffled feathers when he candidly told his French counterpart, President Emmanuel Macron, that the Australian submarine deal with France had been handled clumsily. An assuaged France is bound to come around eventually since the Trans-Atlantic partnership is important for both sides. In regard to Australia, however, the kerfuffle over the cancelled submarine deal continues to dog relations. A piqued France harbours resentment at the Australian action, going by Mr. Macron’s recent remarks at the G20 press conference on November 1.
The ASEAN factor
•There is also the matter of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) disunity over the emergence of AUKUS. The South-east Asian nations have been unable to agree on other issues before, such as developments in Myanmar or the strategic threats posed by China. While AUKUS is clearly an attempt by the U.S. to bolster regional security, including securing Australia’s seaborne trade, any sudden accretion in Australia’s naval capabilities is bound to cause unease in the region. In a statement on September 20, Australia had unambiguously reassured the region of its commitment to ASEAN centrality and its continued support for the South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone Treaty as well as the Treaty of Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone.
•Even though Australia has denied that AUKUS is a defence alliance, this hardly prevents China from exploiting ASEAN’s concerns at having to face a Hobson’s choice amidst worsening U.S.-China regional rivalry. True to style, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman has criticised AUKUS as an “exclusive bloc” and “clique” that gravely undermines regional peace and security and reflects a Cold War mentality. AUKUS is based on a shared commitment of its three members to deepening diplomatic, security and defence cooperation in the Indo-Pacific to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Even though this has not been stated explicitly, the rise of China, particularly its rapid militarisation and aggressive behaviour, is undoubtedly the trigger.
Decades-old partnership
•As such, there is nothing surprising about the U.S., the U.K. and Australia coming together. The U.S. and the U.K. have enjoyed a special defence partnership for decades. The U.S. and the U.K. have fought together as allies, together with Australia, in the Second World War. The U.S. shared nuclear weapons technology with the U.K. following the merging of the latter’s nuclear weapons programme with the American Manhattan Project as early as in 1943. The first U.K. test was conducted in 1952 in the Montebello Islands in Australia, a country that still regards the British monarch as the head of state, whose powers are exercised constitutionally through her representative, the Governor-General of Australia. To suggest that these three nations have come together to forge a new defence pact is stating the obvious. They have been alliance partners all along.
Engagement with China
•For three nations, their relations with China have recently been marked by contretemps. Australia, especially, had for years subordinated its strategic assessment of China to transactional commercial interests. Much to China’s chagrin, its policy of deliberately targeting Australian exports has not yielded the desired results. Instead of kow-towing, the plucky Australian character has led Canberra to favour a fundamental overhaul of its China policy. The attempt to torment Australia has clearly backfired.
•That China’s naval expansion and far-ranging forays in the oceanic space should have compelled Australia to revisit its defence and security policies should also not surprise anyone. As early as in 1942, during the Second World War, three Japanese midget submarines, launched from five large submarines that acted as launching platforms, had mounted a sneak attack in Sydney Harbour. Though the damage and casualties inflicted by the attack were limited, that brazen episode, combined by the bombing by Japanese warplanes of Darwin, also in 1942, drove home to Australia that its distant geographical location could not guarantee its security against a direct maritime threat.
•In 2017 and 2019, the Talisman Sabre exercises (a biennial exercise that is led by either Australia or the U.S.), conducted by the Royal Australian Navy, were tagged by a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Dongdiao-class Type 815 auxiliary general intelligence (AGI) vessel. China also used the same type of vessel to monitor the multilateral Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise in 2018.
•These developments, no doubt a portent of things to come, have cast a long shadow on Australia’s trade and strategic interests.
‘To further’ is the key
•The transfer of sensitive submarine technology by the U.S. to the U.K. is a sui generis arrangement based on their long-standing Mutual Defence Agreement of 1958. The AUKUS joint statement clearly acknowledges that trilateral defence ties are decades old, and that AUKUS aims to further joint capabilities and interoperability. The word “further” is key, since defence cooperation already exists. The other areas covered are cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence and quantum technologies, apart from undersea capabilities. The latter is the most visible part of the agreement, and potentially, a game-changer.
•Elements in the broader agenda provide opportunities to the U.S., the U.K. and Australia to engage the regional countries. There are clear indications that New Zealand is open to cooperation with AUKUS in such areas, especially cyber, its nuclear-averse record notwithstanding. All three nations will also play a major role in U.S.-led programmes such as Build Back Better World, Blue Dot Network and Clean Network, to meet the challenge of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
A comparison, the reach
•The Quad and AUKUS are distinct, yet complementary. Neither diminishes the other. Whereas the Quad initiatives straddle the Indian and the Pacific Oceans, a Pacific-centric orientation for AUKUS has advantages. Such a strategy could potentially strengthen Japan’s security as well as that of Taiwan in the face of China’s mounting bellicosity. Shifting AUKUS’s fulcrum to the Pacific Ocean could reassure ASEAN nations. It could also inure AUKUS to any insidious insinuation that accretion in the number of nuclear submarines plying the Indo-Pacific might upset the balance of power in the Indian Ocean.
