aditya
08:34
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Saturday, December 11, 2021
Daily Current Affairs, 10th December 2021
aditya
08:18
1) DRDO test-fired air version of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile
•India successfully test-fired the air version of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile from the integrated test range of Chandipur, off the coast of Odisha. The air version of the missile was test-fired from supersonic fighter aircraft Sukhoi 30 MK-I. BrahMos is a joint venture between DRDO (India) and NPO Mashinostroyeniya (Russia) for the development, production, and marketing of the supersonic cruise missile which has been inducted into the Indian Armed Forces. The missile derives its name from the rivers of Brahmaputra in India and Moskva in Russia.
2) Bala Krishna Madhur’s autobiography titled ‘At Home In The Universe’ released
•An autobiography titled ‘At Home In The Universe’ by Bala Krishna Madhur was released by R.C. Sinha, IAS (Rtd), advisor to the Ministry of Road Development in Mumbai, Maharashtra. The book is the autobiography of B K Madhur, a former Chief Executive Officer at DHFL Property Services Ltd, and one of the key personalities in establishing Dewan Housing. The book offers an inside view into the policy environment in the 1980s and 1990s in the Housing Finance Sector. The book consists of early life hardships, experiences and life lessons of the author.
3) Indian origin Anil Menon is SpaceX’s first flight surgeon
•Nasa-turned-SpaceX flight surgeon, Anil Menon is among the 10 latest trainee astronauts who will join the 2021 class of the American space agency as it plans for the first human missions to the moon in more than 50 years. He is born to Indian and Ukrainian parents and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Menon is a lieutenant colonel in the US air force. He was SpaceX’s first flight surgeon, helping to launch the company’s first humans to space during NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission and building a medical organisation to support the human system during future missions.
4) Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi sentenced to jail
•Myanmar’s ousted civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to four years imprisonment after being found guilty on two charges, the first verdicts in a raft of criminal cases that the country’s military has brought against her since seizing power 10 months ago. Ms Suu Kyi was convicted of charges of incitement and violating pandemic rules. The 76-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate is facing a total of 11 charges which can bring in a maximum imprisonment of 102 years.
5) Bhasha Sangam mobile app launched with 22 languages
•Union Minister of State for Education, Dr Subhas Sarkar has informed that the government is all set to launch Bhasha Sangam mobile app. The mobile app is developed to give users familiarity with common expressions of daily conversation in scheduled Indian languages. The app has 100+ sentences, designed on different themes that allow people to learn basic conversation in 22 Indian languages, test themselves and generate online certificates. The app aims to foster the spirit of Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat by enabling people across India to learn the different languages of different states of India and come closer to their culture.
6) UP cabinet approves Atma Nirbhar Krishak development scheme
•Uttar Pradesh Cabinet has approved the Atma Nirbhar Krishak development scheme for boosting the agriculture sector. Atma Nirbhar Krishak development scheme will be implemented from the current financial year. Under this scheme, 1,475 Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) will be formed in the next three years in each development block.
7) Ministry of Power kickstarts celebration of Energy Conservation Week
•Ministry of Power is celebrating the Energy Conservation Week from 8th to 14th December 2021 under “Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav”. Celebration by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency will include three major activities i.e. National Painting Competition for school children, National Energy Conservation Awards (NECA) for Industries and establishments and National Energy Efficiency Innovation Awards (NEEIA) to recognize innovative energy efficiency technologies.
•The Bureau of Energy Efficiency has been organising National Level Painting Competitions on Energy Conservation for school children studying in 4th to 10th standard. This year, the themes for the competition are “Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav: Energy Efficient India” and “Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav: Cleaner Planet”.
Daily Current Affairs, 09th December 2021
aditya
08:11
1) World Inequality Report 2022 announced
•France-based World Inequality Lab published its report titled “World Inequality Report 2022”. This report was authored by Lucas Chancel, who is the co-director of World Inequality Lab. It was coordinated by famed French economist Thomas Piketty. In 2021 the top 10 percent and top 1 percent of the Indian population hold 57 percent and 22 percent of total national income respectively, whereas the share of the bottom 50 percent has gone down to 13 percent.
2) Ram Nath Kovind Presented ‘President’s Standard’ to Indian Navy Squadron
•President of India, Ram Nath Kovind has presented the ‘President’s Standard’ to the 22nd Missile Vessel Squadron of the Indian Navy, which is also known as the Killer Squadron at the ceremonial parade held at the Naval Dockyard, Mumbai, Maharashtra. To mark this occasion, the postal department has released a special day cover and a commemorative stamp. The year 2021 also marks the 50 years of inception of the Missile Vessel Squadron, also known as Killers.
3) Asia Power Index 2021: India Ranked as Fourth
•According to Lowy Institute Asia Power Index 2021, India has ranked 4th most powerful country in the Asia-Pacific region for comprehensive power out of 26 countries, with an overall score of 37.7 out of 100. India’s overall score declined by 2 points compared to 2020. India again falls short of the major power threshold in 2021. India is one of 18 countries in Asia to trend downward in its overall score in 2021.
4) NITI Aayog launches ‘e-Sawaari India e-bus Coalition’
•The National Institution of Transforming India (NITI) Aayog launched the ‘e-Sawaari India Electric Bus Coalition’ in partnership with Convergence Energy Service Ltd (CESL) and World Resources Institute, India (WRI India) and with the support from Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative (TUMI). The objective of the initiative is to share knowledge of various stakeholders – Central & State Govt. agencies, transit service providers, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), on accelerating the process towards seamless adoption of e-bus services in India.
•Through, e-Sawaari India Electric Bus Coalition, the central-, state-, and city-level government agencies, transit service providers, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), financing institutions, and ancillary service providers will be able to share knowledge and their learnings on e-bus adoption in India.
5) Olaf Scholz is sworn in as new German chancellor
•German lawmakers officially elected Social Democrat, Olaf Scholz as the new chancellor, putting an end to 16 years of conservative rule under Angela Merkel. He will lead a government composed of his Social Democrat Party, the business-friendly Free Democrats and the Greens, a coalition of parties never tried before at the federal level in Germany.
•The 63-year-old, Scholz previously served as vice-chancellor and finance minister during the Merkel administration, was then sworn in as Germany’s next chancellor. Olaf Scholz has achieved the necessary majority of at least 369 votes. Based on article 63, paragraph 2 of the German Constitution he is elected chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.
6) SAARC Charter Day 2021: 8th December
•The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Charter Day is observed annually on 8th December to commemorate the adoption of the SAARC Charter. This year marks the 37th anniversary of the regional group. The charter was signed by the Leaders of SAARC Countries Heads of State or Government of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka at the First SAARC Summit held in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
7) Canada, Australia and UK join US boycott of Beijing Olympic
•Canada will join the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics over human rights concerns. The announcement came after the White House, the Australian government and the UK government confirmed diplomatic boycotts of the Winter Games in February to protest Chinese human rights abuses. China has vowed to react with “firm countermeasures.” The diplomatic moves by Canada, the U.S., Britain and Australia do not affect their athletes’ ability to compete in the games.
The HINDU Notes – 10th December 2021
aditya
01:38
📰 ‘Imports made up 86% of 2016-20 India gold supply’
Inbound shipments likely to be stronger in 2022: WGC
•Imports made up 86% of India’s gold supply between 2016-2020, and inbound shipments continue to grow despite high import duty, as per a report by the World Gold Council (WGC).
•Since the first duty hike in 2012, India has imported some 6,581 tonnes of gold, averaging 730 tonnes per annum, as per WGC’s ‘Bullion Trade in India’ report.
•In 2020, India imported 377 tonnes of gold bars and dore from over 30 countries, of which 55% came from just two countries — Switzerland (44%) and the UAE (11%).
•One important change that has taken place in India’s gold market is the growth in gold dore imports. The increase reflects the government’s accommodative stance towards gold refining, the report said.
•In the last five years, gold dore imports made up 30% of the total official imports of the yellow metal.
•Duty benefits led to a massive expansion of refining capacity in the country as the number of refineries grew from three in 2012 to 32 in 2020. With lower duty on gold dore, its share of gold imports has increased from 11% in 2014 to 29% in 2020.
•“As the second largest global market, Indian gold demand is heavily dependent on bullion and dore imports. Looking at current market trends, we expect gold imports to be stronger in 2022, as compared to this year.
•“Bullion industry has developed over the last three decades in India with a significant addition to organised refining capacity and an LBMA-accredited refinery,” WGC regional CEO, India, Somasundaram P R said.
📰 A tragic loss: On the death of Gen Bipin Rawat
India must realise Gen. Rawat’s plans for genuine tri-service operational capabilities
•India has lost a capable and experienced military leader in the tragic death of the country’s first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Bipin Rawat, in a helicopter crash near Coonoor in the Nilgiris on Wednesday. His wife, Madhulika, and 11 others also perished when the Indian Air Force’s Mi-17V5 helicopter came down in a heavily wooded area. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has announced in Parliament that a tri-service inquiry, headed by Air Marshal Manvendra Singh, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Training Command, of the IAF, will take place into the incident. The IAF chief, Air Chief Marshal V.R. Chaudhari, has already visited the crash site; the cockpit voice and flight data recorders have been recovered, which would give investigators insights into how the crash occurred. It is imperative that the inquiry be done both thoroughly and speedily. Without speculating on the cause, it needs to be stressed that speedy course corrections in training or hardware are imperative given that these Mi-17VF choppers are being used to ferry top military leaders across the length and breadth of the country.
•Gen. Rawat had not even completed two years as CDS when the Coonoor tragedy happened. After completing his tenure as Army Chief on December 31, 2019, he slipped into his new role as CDS the very next day. Many of his plans to give India genuine tri-service operational capabilities are still to be realised. In such a situation, the Government should not lose time in appointing his successor to ensure that the plans on the drawing board do not suffer. An aggressive China and a still belligerent Pakistan define India’s security challenges. The situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) continues to be tense with Indian and Chinese troops staring down each other. Gen. Rawat, known to have been proximate to the ruling establishment, had never minced words while speaking about the challenges facing the country and had waded into political controversies. Though the concept of having a CDS was recommended by a Group of Ministers in 2000 after the Kargil war, it took another 20 years for one to be appointed. The CDS, who functions as Principal Military Adviser to the Defence Minister, is expected to work in tandem with the three service chiefs who continue to operate in their respective domains — a role and function that is still in the making. To ensure that the new CDS and the service chiefs function as a team, the Government would do well to keep in mind the principle of seniority while choosing Gen. Rawat’s successor.
📰 Children and schooling in the post-COVID-19 era
India will have to confront bitter facts if it wants to prepare a recovery plan of any credible and practical value
•When someone in the family falls sick, all normal routines and arrangements are affected. And then, the deeper problems that lay hidden under the momentum of routine lie exposed and revealed. The same applies to an epidemic. The term currently used is ‘pandemic’ because it covers the whole world, but one cannot forget that even a universal illness manifests itself in regionally specific, local ways, exposing the problems to which societies had become accustomed. In our case, the pandemic has revealed the limits of our wherewithal to look after the collective needs of children during a calamity. A child in the family has a radically different status from that accorded to children as a collective entity in our country. The pandemic has revealed that society and state institutions prefer to ignore the conditions under which the family copes with the demands of childhood.
Peripheral concern
•Children’s education and health are two major domains in which welfare policies of the modern state are expected to support and enhance the family’s role. In both these domains, the policy framework reflects a minimalist stance, both in terms of financial investment and institutional strength. In policies as well as in their execution, there is considerable diversity and disparity among the States. The overall picture suggests that childhood is of peripheral concern. Gains made in this context have proved difficult to sustain.
The pandemic’s deep effect
•When the Right to Education (RTE) Act was promulgated over a decade ago, it seemed like a breakthrough. This perception was grounded in the structures and procedures created under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan during the decade preceding the RTE. These structures were not perfect, but they marked a new beginning in the direction of local autonomy and devolution of power. These fragile structures required nurturing on a long-term basis. Neglect and decay set in quite soon in regions where the system was weak to begin with, and then came COVID-19. Several recent surveys show that the pandemic has left the entire system ravaged. Even something as basic as a meal for the youngest age group ceased. Teaching switched wholesale to the online mode, leaving it to the family to cope with the demands hidden in this medium. A flat discourse pervaded the ethos, offering few choices or clues to enhance them.
•India was unique in the fact that even the very youngest age group was covered by online teaching. With the reopening of schools, the outcomes of prolonged exposure to digital devices in confined spaces have started to be revealed and documented. The vast majority of children from lower socio-economic backgrounds could not access online teaching for reasons totally beyond their control. And among those who did have access to online lessons, rates of comprehension and progress were quite low.
•Studies show that academic losses are compounded by emotional problems. A survey carried out by the Vipla Foundation has traced the kinds of stress children experienced at home. Exposure to domestic violence, prolonged hours in front of TV, especially among boys, and addiction to digital sources of entertainment are among the various outcomes of COVID-19 confinement.
A recovery plan
•Systemic recovery will undoubtedly prove arduous. The time required for recovery will depend on imagination and resources. A significant beginning has been made in Tamil Nadu. A committee chaired by Professor R. Ramanujam has been asked to prepare a three-year recovery plan and a new curriculum. A major problem this committee will need to address is the addictive effect of prolonged online teaching. Devices such as the smartphone induce small children into a seductive bond that may not be easy to shake off. Restoring children’s innate desire to relate to the world physically and socially surrounding them will constitute a major step towards educational recovery. This will demand de-addiction from digital instruments.
•The COVID experiment of exclusive dependence on digital machinery has resulted in a radical expansion of its market. It has also permitted digital activism to mutate into an ideological doctrine of progress. The Ramanujam committee may not find it easy to deal with this doctrine. Its believers and new recruits must be persuaded to listen to child psychologists and teachers of young children. Their voices, feeble though they are at present, offer the best promise of healing our injured system.
•It was not a strong and resilient system to begin with. Its key functionaries — the teachers — had little say in decisions and no autonomy to do their best. Distrust in the teacher cuts across the deep divisions that characterise the system. On one side of the divide are government schools of various types, with differential levels of funding but common norms of governance. On the other side are private schools ranging from shoestring budget schools to the well-endowed, elite institutions. What sustains this straggling order of institutional outfits is the grand national fantasy that even an inadequate system such as India’s can generate a sufficient number of good doctors, judges, teachers, engineers, civil servants and so on.
Shifting of children
•No description can capture the differential realities of experience that COVID-19 imposed on this vast range of institutions. Nor is there a comprehensive study to tell us how parents belonging to different socio-economic classes coped with their anxieties. We now know that financial constraints have forced a considerable proportion of children studying in private schools to shift to government schools. What this shift implies for the children and for the schools they will now attend needs more than speculation. Indeed, the shift itself remains a raw reality. In a recent webinar, Professor Shantha Sinha, former head of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, spoke about the astonishing demand faced by parents who wanted to transfer their children from a private to a government school. As many private schools run entirely on the strength of the fees they collect, they had to close down during COVID-19. The digital record of children’s enrolment maintained in some States continues to show their names in a private school. Seeking a transfer requires deletion from this record. Prof. Sinha said that many private schools in her region demand recovery of the COVID-19 period fee for granting deletion of the child’s name. This is just one instance of the hundreds of bitter experiential facts we will need to gather from every part of the country in order to prepare a post-COVID-19 recovery plan of any credible and practical value.
Insightful report
•For now, the best we can do is to browse through a new United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) report titled “No Teacher, No Class” (https://bit.ly/31HJFKi), and heed its sane recommendations. Prepared by a team of scholars at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, this report tells us that India is facing a shortfall of at least one million school teachers. The report makes several key recommendations. The first is: “Improve the terms of employment of teachers in both public and private schools.” Some of the other recommendations are: value the professional autonomy of teachers, build career pathways, and, above all, recruit more teachers. If sound, research-based advice is what we need for rebuilding the system, it is available in this excellent report.
The HINDU Notes – 09th December 2021
aditya
01:32
📰 Union Cabinet clears Ken-Betwa river interlinking project
Water-starved districts of U.P. and M.P. to benefit from ₹44,605-crore scheme, says Government.
•The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the funding and implementation of the Ken-Betwa river interlinking project at a cost of ₹44,605 crore at the 2020-21 price level. The Centre would fund ₹39,317 crore for the project, with ₹36,290 crore as a grant and ₹3,027 crore as a loan.
•The project involves transferring of water from the Ken river to the Betwa river through the construction of Daudhan dam and a canal linking the two rivers, the Lower Orr Project, Kotha Barrage and the Bina Complex Multipurpose Project. The project is slated to irrigate 10.62 lakh hectares annually, provide drinking water supply to 62 lakh people and generate 103 MW of hydropower and 27 MW of solar power. The project is proposed to be ready in eight years.
•“The project will be of immense benefit to the water-starved Bundelkhand region, spread across Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. This project will provide enormous benefits to the districts of Panna, Tikamgarh, Chhatarpur, Sagar, Damoh, Datia, Vidisha, Shivpuri and Raisen of Madhya Pradesh and Banda, Mahoba, Jhansi and Lalitpur of Uttar Pradesh,” a statement noted.
•“The project is expected to boost socio-economic prosperity in the backward Bundelkhand region on account of increased agricultural activities and employment generation. It would also help in arresting distress migration from this region,” it said.
Many hurdles
•Several obstacles have dogged the project. For one, the project will partly submerge the Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh and affect the habitat of vultures and jackals. After years of protests, it was finally cleared by the apex wildlife regulator, the National Board for Wildlife, in 2016.
•Then Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh could not agree on how water would be shared, particularly in the non-monsoonal months. They reached an agreement in March. The original project was conceived in two distinct phases but now they are learnt to be combined.
•In a “normal” year, Madhya Pradesh would use 2,350 MCM (million cubic metre) of water and Uttar Pradesh, 1,700 MCM. From November-May, the non-monsoon period, Madhya Pradesh would get 1,834 MCM and Uttar Pradesh 750 MCM. A sticking point was that Uttar Pradesh had demanded nearly 900 MCM and Madhya Pradesh was prepared to release only 700 MCM.
•A new body — the Ken Betwa Link Project Authority — will execute the project and is in the process of obtaining forest clearance for constructing the Daudhan dam.
📰 The need for a robust civil registration system
Establishing reliable, real-time mortality surveillance is an essential element of pandemic preparedness
•As the COVID-19 pandemic advances into its third year with varied intensity, the world waits with bated breath to learn about the impact of the Omicron variant. Fortunately, South Africa has established an efficient rapid mortality surveillance system which would alert us with the earliest evidence of such impact, if any. It is also reassuring that lessons from previous pandemic waves in India have resulted in an early scrambling of critical response preparedness activities. Nevertheless, despite pronouncements of ICU bed availability and oxygen supply by several States combined with personal protection through vaccination, the threat of individual susceptibility to the new variant from immune escape and underlying morbidity remains. Hence, any proof of lethality (or lack thereof) of this variant from South Africa could only serve as background information, underscoring the need for similar early warning mortality surveillance activities in India.
No reliable estimate
•Mortality data are essential for pandemic management from both clinical and public health perspectives to guide patient care, protection of vulnerable population groups, and resource mobilisation and allocation. In all countries, data from COVID-19 mortality surveillance systems are limited on account of inadequate access to ante-mortem testing and inconsistent cause attribution. Hence, pandemic impact is now evaluated through estimation of excess mortality (additional deaths observed during the pandemic period in comparison with those recorded in previous calendar years). For adequate response, such evaluation needs reliable baseline pre-pandemic mortality measures, near-complete death reporting during the pandemic, and real-time data compilation and release at weekly or monthly intervals. For South Africa, the National Population Register serves as a useful data source, with weekly updates of deaths by sex, age, date of death, and place of registration. Shortcomings in completeness and timeliness of reporting exist, but the mortality surveillance team has established procedures to correct for such biases to report excess mortality estimates at the national and provincial level in near to real-time.
•For India, excess mortality estimates are based on epidemiological models, some of which include analyses of month-wise death registration data released by several States. However, these estimation exercises were hampered by uncertainty in baseline pre-pandemic mortality levels, potential under-registration in 2021, and the likelihood for the data to include some delayed registrations. All these likely data biases were statistically accounted for by different analysts through varying methods and assumptions, resulting in national excess mortality estimates ranging from 2.8 million to 5.2 million deaths between April 2020 and June 2021. On the other hand, the national COVID-19 surveillance programme death toll for this period was about 4,30,000, considered to be a gross under-count. This 10-fold variation in estimates of COVID-19 mortality in India is clearly not helpful, and the absence of a reliable estimate constitutes a major impediment to our understanding of the magnitude of pandemic mortality, both at the national and global level.
Encouraging trends
•Nevertheless, several recent developments have created prospects for improved estimation of excess mortality in 2020/2021, as well as for ongoing mortality surveillance and measurement programmes in India. First, the Civil Registration System (CRS) Report for 2019 indicates high levels of registration completeness across India. These data have now been corrected for under-reporting to compute reliable pre-pandemic mortality estimates by sex, age and location, as a baseline for evaluating pandemic impact. Next, the prompt release of information on registered deaths by some States in 2021 (summarised in COVID-19 mortality data reports by The Hindu) indicates that efficient mechanisms for data compilation are functional in these States. Indeed, the Registrar General of India (RGI) had issued a circular in November 2017 which requires District and State Registrars to submit summary monthly returns of births and deaths registered within their jurisdiction. The circular also declares that “the vital rates generated through the CRS are exact and real data certified by registering authority, and therefore legally admissible, and prevail over any other estimates that may be done for proxy purposes due to the lack of data”. It is likely that the prompt release of registration data following the second wave would have been facilitated by these instructions. Third, the pandemic has evoked considerable media and public attention to epidemiological data including mortality, which led to the flurry of data reports to meet this demand. There is now a general expectation of continued public attention to such health data in times to come.
The road ahead
•While the quick data release in 2021 augurs well for future availability, CRS data for 2020 and provisional data reports for 2021 should be released at the earliest, at least to an internal team of analysts. Local statistical capacity must also be established at State registration offices for data quality evaluation, adjustments for data bias, and basic trend and forecast analysis. Data dissemination protocols need to be standardised using a template for compilations of deaths tabulated by sex, broad age groups, month of death occurrence, and district of usual residence. The CRS death reporting forms include these variables, hence enabling such detailed tabulations each month. A lag period in death reporting across registration units and districts is anticipated, but updated counts in subsequent months are widely accepted in regard to pandemic surveillance. Information on deaths recorded in the national Sample Registration System and other household surveys could be used to estimate completeness of CRS data using record linkage methods. It should be feasible for State Registrars to direct such operations, with resources and technical support from local public health/academic institutions. Of course, subsequent detailed analysis of annual data complying with the standard data validation protocols implemented by the RGI would still be necessary for the annual CRS report. But the availability of provisional near real-time surveillance reports would enhance monitoring of the mortality impact of this and future epidemics.
•In principle, mortality estimates developed from adjustments to empirical data are by design locally relevant and therefore more acceptable than modelled estimates. Even in routine times, there has been an undue dependence on epidemiological models to estimate mortality for India, as observed from various recent disease burden estimations. Analysis of recent CRS data has exposed the brittle nature of the outputs from these models. Moreover, the identified gaps in CRS data by location, sex and age from detailed analyses can help guide interventions to improve data quality for the future. In the current environment, establishing reliable, real-time mortality surveillance is an essential element of pandemic preparedness, and urgent steps to build on recent developments in this aspect would advance the cause of evidence-based health policy to deal with the pandemic in India.
📰 Russia, a legacy relationship with limitations
The India-Russia relationship stands deeply strained by larger geopolitical realities, but there is scope for improved ties
• The Russian President Vladimir Putin’s short visit to New Delhi and the inaugural 2+2 meeting between India and Russia — which is India’s fourth such engagement with another country — will help improve Moscow-New Delhi ties, currently fraying under the pressure of larger global power shifts. Of all the diplomatic balancing acts India has to play in this milieu of geopolitical uncertainty, the one with Russia is the most significant. And yet, let the ongoing flurry of activity between Moscow and New Delhi not blind us to the global forces that will pose formidable challenges for the partnership.
There are constraints
•Russia, no doubt, is a friend in need to India; but Moscow’s friendship comes with limitations. Not only would the realities of the global balance of power shrink the robustness of the relationship over time, but, more crucially perhaps, a legacy relationship based on limited interaction might eventually lose the warmth given that there is little organic, people-to-people content to the relationship.
•To put it bluntly, unless the bilateral ties can move beyond arms sale/purchase, the phase of stasis will kick in sooner rather than later in India-Russia relations. Consider for instance, the India-Russia bilateral trade is around U.S.$10 billion, far lower than India’s trade with China and the United States, China’s trade with the U.S. and Russia, and even the U.S.’s trade with Russia. The Soviet-era cultural and people-to-people contacts have almost entirely evaporated. Arms sales alone won’t a relationship make.
•Today, the India-Russia relationship stands deeply strained by the larger geopolitical realities which neither of them is completely in control of. The quadrilateral dynamics among India, China, the U.S. and Russia have different implications of varying degrees for all four states in this relationship, in particular for India.
The dynamics
•Let us use the concept of primary and secondary antagonisms to understand the dynamics of this quad better. To a great extent, if not entirely, the dynamics of this six-way relationship, at the apex, is a function of the U.S.-China rivalry. In this six-way matrix, China-U.S. antagonism is the first order relationship and the U.S.-Russia, China-Russia and Russia-India are the second order relationships. While the second order relationships in this quad are, to a great extent, a product of the primary antagonism, the second tier relationships also have their own unique dynamics and implications.
•For instance, India-China, a second order relationship in this quad, is both a product of the primary antagonism between the U.S. and China as well as a result of the regional geopolitical rivalry between India and China.
•Even though China remains its primary antagonism, Washington has not yet succeeded in divorcing its less challenging second order antagonism (rivalry with Moscow) from it. Washington’s parallel rivalries with China and Russia (albeit to a lesser extent) have complicated matters for New Delhi.
•What appears to be a near certainty in the medium to longer term is that the dynamics of the quadrilateral relationship, in particular India’s tense relations with China, will go on to complicate India’s time-tested partnership with Russia, a process that has already started.
•Even though Beijing has not aggressively attempted to damage India-Russia relations, there is little doubt that China will attempt to drive a wedge between New Delhi and Moscow since isolating India in the larger Asian region suits Beijing’s larger game plan.
A few scenarios
•It gets more complicated if we were to examine the various potential scenarios in this quadrilateral relationship. For instance, the extent of Chinese aggression towards India will play a role in determining India’s relationship with Russia. Consider this. An aggressive China will push India towards the U.S., and even though Russia would be understanding towards India’s rationale behind such a pro-U.S. tilt in the medium term, India’s relationship with the U.S. will invariably create hurdles in India-Russia relations in the longer term. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s warning to India should be read in that context: “We expressed our serious concern to our Indian friends over the U.S. activity there (Asia-Pacific region) under the slogan of so-called Indo-Pacific strategies and the creation of closed bloc-type structures”.
•Put differently, the more aggressive Beijing gets towards New Delhi, the more India would grow closer to Washington and Moscow. However, while Moscow would appreciate a close partnership with New Delhi, it may not be when it comes to a growing India-U.S. partnership. More so, if Moscow has to choose between Beijing and New Delhi, it would choose Beijing just as New Delhi would choose Washington over Moscow if it comes to that.
•This also implies that an aggressive China may also help increase India-Russia relations in the short to medium term, something we may already be witnessing. Recall Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s visit to Moscow in June 2020 soon after the stand-off between Indian and Chinese troops on the Line of Actual Control to procure more weapons systems, among other things.
•In the meantime, the seemingly unresolvable first order antagonism (the U.S. versus China) also provides space for geopolitical hedges in the second order partnerships/antagonisms, i.e., India-Russia and even Russia-U.S. For instance, Russia’s dormant concerns about China’s rising influence in its traditional periphery, and Moscow’s relations with India in the broader context of Central and West Asia and the western Indian Ocean could prompt Moscow to maintain a certain degree of, albeit limited, geopolitical hedge vis-à-vis Beijing. India’s desire for a robust relationship with Russia will be more appreciated by the U.S. due to the Chinese aggression against India and the U.S.’s systemic and first order rivalry with Beijing. More so, once the reality of the rise of China becomes a concern for Moscow, it could potentially open conversations with Washington to create a balance vis-à-vis Beijing which suits Indian interests.
•At the same time, however, if there is a rapprochement between the U.S. and Russia or a reduction in the war of words between the U.S. and China, this may or may not have a direct and substantive impact on Sino-Indian relations since the strains in Sino-Indian relations are not just a product of global balance of power but, more fundamentally, a result of India-China dynamics in the Southern Asian region. Put differently, no matter what the state of global geopolitics is, the essential (adversarial) nature of India-China relations is unlikely to undergo a fundamental transformation. For New Delhi, the principal antagonism is China. Therefore, New Delhi must exploit strategies and partnerships that can help address the China challenge more effectively. This means that India has to carefully balance its growing partnership with the U.S. with its somewhat delicate relationship with Russia.
Potential for cooperation
•Let us return to the India-Russia ties and examine the potential for cooperation between the two sides. In a sense, the U.S. withdrawal from Kabul and India’s relationship with Moscow have helped New Delhi to adopt more flexible strategies vis-à-vis Afghanistan as well as the broader region. Given the close relationship that New Delhi enjoyed with Washington, American presence in Kabul had, in a way, limited India’s options as New Delhi was broadly encouraged to follow U.S. policy in the region. With the Americans gone, India can openly cooperate with Moscow and even Tehran, especially if the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) renegotiations succeed, and engage Afghanistan and the Central Asian region with their help.
•If New Delhi plays its cards well, it can use Moscow to gain more geopolitical heft in the region — while the U.S. provided New Delhi status quo in the region, Moscow could provide India with more direct opportunities. Of course, New Delhi would need to be prepared for adverse reactions from Beijing and Islamabad.
•Yet another area of cooperation between Moscow and New Delhi is the Indian Ocean Region, especially the western Indian Ocean where Russia has been expanding its influence and India has significant interests.
•For New Delhi, located in an unstable and virtually friendless neighbourhood, friendship with Russia is important notwithstanding the structural limits to such a friendship. It will, therefore, take a great deal of diplomatic agility from New Delhi to stay the course and improve the relationship with Moscow amidst high-stakes geopolitical contestations.
📰 Low tobacco tax, poor health
The absence of an increase in tax on tobacco products post-GST has impacted revenue and could worsen public health
•In India, 28.6% of adults above 15 years and 8.5% of students aged 13-15 years use tobacco in some form or the other. This makes the country the second largest consumer of tobacco in the world. Tobacco use is known to be a major risk factor for several non-communicable diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and chronic lung diseases. India also bears an annual economic burden of over ₹1,77,340 crore on account of tobacco use. Yet, there has been no major increase in taxation of tobacco products to discourage the consumption of tobacco in the past four years since the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in 2017 except for a small increase in the national calamity contingent duty (NCCD) in the 2020-21 Union Budget which only had the effect of increasing the average price of cigarettes by about 5%.
A worrying trend
•The absence of an increase in tax means more profits for the tobacco industry and more tax revenue foregone for the government — revenue that could have easily been utilised during the COVID-19 pandemic. There has been a 3% real decline in GST revenues from tobacco products in each of the past two financial years. The average annual tax revenue collection from all tobacco products (based on the past three years), including excise duty, NCCD, GST, and compensation cess, is about ₹53,750 crore.
•Excise taxes on many tobacco products used to be regularly raised in the annual Union Budgets before the GST. Similarly, several State governments used to regularly raise value-added tax (VAT) on tobacco products. During the five years before the introduction of the GST, most State governments had moved from having a low VAT regime on tobacco products to having a high VAT regime. The 17.3% relative reduction in the prevalence of tobacco use among adults that India experienced between 2009-10 and 2016-17, as shown by the Global Adult Tobacco Survey, could be partly attributed to this as well. International literature recognises tax increase as one of the most cost-effective ways of regulating the consumption of tobacco.
•The lack of tax increases in post-GST years might mean that some current smokers smoke more now and some non-smokers have started smoking. This could potentially lead to a reversal of the declining trend in prevalence. This might jeopardise India’s commitment to achieving 30% tobacco use prevalence reduction by 2025 as envisaged in the National Health Policy of 2017 by the Government of India. The lack of tax increase means that the tax burden on tobacco products (tax as a percentage of the retail price) decreases. The tax burden on bidis, cigarettes, and smokeless tobacco, on average, stands at 22%, 53%, and 64% in 2021, while the World Health Organization has been recommending a uniform tax burden of at least 75% for each tobacco product.
•Given that the vast majority of tobacco taxation today is in the form of GST and compensation cess and their revision requires consensus within the GST Council, tobacco taxation has not seen any increase whatsoever under the GST since 2017. In other words, the tobacco industry has been virtually enjoying four years without extended tax on tobacco products, since the introduction of the GST. This has made tobacco products more affordable post-GST as shown in recent literature from India. This is highly detrimental to public health.
•Meanwhile, the share of central excise duties including NCCD in the total tobacco taxes decreased from 54% to 8% for cigarettes, 17% to 1% for bidis, and 59% to 11% for smokeless tobacco products, on average, from 2017 (pre-GST) to 2021 (post-GST). Several countries in the world have high excise taxes along with GST or sales tax and they are continuously being revised. Yet, the excise duty on tobacco in India continues to remain extremely low.
A considerate view of public health
•The Union government should take a considerate view of public health and significantly increase excise taxes — either basic excise duty or NCCD — on all tobacco products. The upcoming Union Budget gives a perfect opportunity for this. The Budget should fix an excise tax of at least ₹1 per stick of bidis while aiming for a significant increase in the excise tax of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products. Taxation should achieve a significant reduction in the affordability of tobacco products to reduce tobacco use prevalence and facilitate India’s march towards sustainable development goals.
📰 High LPG prices are scorching the air pollution fight
Reinstating subsidies on LPG refills for low-income households can help reverse families going back to polluting fuels
•The sustained rise in the price of LPG cylinders has been burning a hole in many a household budget for more than a year now. The price of LPG refills has risen by more than 50% to over ₹900 per cylinder in November this year compared to around ₹600 over the past year. With no refill subsidies in place since May 2020, there is genuine concern about many households now slipping back to using polluting solid fuels for cooking, such as firewood and dung cakes.
A start
•Solid fuel use for cooking is the leading contributor to air pollution and related premature deaths in India, estimated to be around over 600,000 every year, as per the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. To tackle this issue head-on, the Government of India has taken several measures to improve access to clean cooking energy. For instance, under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana scheme, the Government distributed more than 80 million subsidised LPG connections. But how far have we managed to dissuade households from biomass? What more do we need to do as a country to move the needle further?
•Sizing up India’s LPG revolution. Good news first. As per the India Residential Energy Survey (IRES) 2020, conducted by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) and the Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy, LPG has now replaced biomass as the most common cooking fuel in India. Nearly 85% of Indian homes have an LPG connection and 71% use it as their primary cooking fuel, compared to only 30% a decade back. This reversal of trends could be attributed to the success of the Ujjwala, consumption-linked subsidies and gradual strengthening of the LPG distributorship. Needless to say, this would have significantly influenced the sector’s contribution to air pollution.
•However, the battle is only half won. Around 30% of Indian households continue to rely on biomass as their primary cooking fuel, mainly due to high LPG prices. Another 24% stack LPG with biomass. The practice of biomass usage is predominantly concentrated in rural areas, particularly among States such as Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal. Urban slums are also critical hotspots where the use of biomass for cooking is widely prevalent. Easy availability of free biomass and lack of home delivery of LPG refills further reduce the efficacy of LPG as a reliable and affordable proposition.
Reinstate subsidies
•To sustain the country’s momentum on clean cooking energy access and thereby, cleaner air for all, we propose three key steps.
•First, reinstate the subsidies on LPG refill for low-income households. At the current refill prices, an average Indian household would have to spend around 10% of its monthly expense on LPG to meet all its cooking energy needs.
•According to a CEEW study, this is just double the actual share of reported expenses on cooking energy (as of March 2020). In fact, nearly half of all Indian households will have to at least double their cooking energy expense to completely switch to LPG at current prices. Given the loss of incomes and livelihoods during the novel coronavirus pandemic, the ability of households to afford LPG on a regular basis has taken a further hit. Thus, resuming subsidies would be critical to support LPG use in many households. Our estimates suggest that an effective price of ₹450 per LPG refill could ensure that the average share of actual household expenditure on cooking energy matches the pre-pandemic levels. The Government could take this into account as it reconsiders resuming LPG subsidy.
•The Government can also explore diverse approaches to identify beneficiaries. This may include limiting the subsidy provision to seven to eight LPG refills annually and excluding well-to-do households using robust indicators. For instance, lowering the income-based exclusion limit for LPG subsidy to ₹2,50,000 a year from ₹10 lakh a year or excluding families owning a non-commercial four-wheeler vehicle can significantly reduce the number of eligible beneficiaries. At the bare minimum, subsidy must be resumed for the households granted LPG connections under the Ujjwala scheme.
Availability and biomass
•Second, boost timely availability of LPG for all consumers. Only half the rural LPG users receive home delivery of LPG refills, while the rest have to travel about five kilometres one way to procure a cylinder. Gaps in the doorstep delivery of LPG cylinders are also present in urban pockets, particularly in slum areas. This is a major factor behind the use of biomass among urban slum households. There is a need to strengthen the LPG supply chain and enforce timely service delivery, particularly in States with a large number of Ujjwala connections and slum population. This must be complemented by higher incentives for rural distributors, who have to otherwise service a low but distributed demand at similar commissions. Looping in self-help groups could also help aggregate demand and create jobs in distant areas.
•Third, create a new market for locally available biomass. The Government needs to pilot initiatives focused on promoting the use of locally available biomass in decentralised processing units that manufacture briquettes and pellets for industrial and commercial establishments. For instance, the National Thermal Power Corporation recently invited applications to supply biomass pellets to fire their power stations. The Government can incentivise entrepreneurs to participate in such activities. Similarly, households can be incentivised to supply locally available biomass (including crop stubble or dung cakes) to Compressed Bio-Gas (CBG) production plants being set up under the Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT) scheme. Such measures would help enhance local income and livelihood opportunities, in turn encouraging rural families to use LPG on a regular basis.
•In August, the Prime Minister launched the Ujjwala 2.0 scheme to distribute 10 million additional free LPG connections to poorer households. It shows the Government’s commitment towards promoting clean cooking energy access. But ensuring affordability and timely availability of LPG cylinders for refills would be a must to wean households away from polluting biomass and reap the benefits of the investments made in the Ujjwala scheme over the past five years. Such efforts would go a long way in improving the health and well-being of our citizens.
