📰 The self-blinding Russia prism
The ‘Russia collusion’ narrative in the U.S. has rendered any diplomacy between the two countries impossible
•Many have been quick to conclude that it was his strong anti-Russiaposition that led to Rex Tillerson’s dismissal as U.S. Secretary of State by President Donald Trump on March 13. The nerve agent used to poison a former Russian spy and his daughter in Britain on March 4 clearly came from Russia, Mr. Tillerson had said, while the White House was more guarded initially. It “sets a profoundly disturbing precedent in which standing up for our allies against Russian aggression is grounds for a humiliating dismissal,” said House of Representatives Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
The Trump singularity
•History, that had been declared ended, appears to have started all over again for the U.S. on November 8, 2016 when Mr. Trump won the presidency. The mainstream punditry in America that missed the revolt around them initially blamed Mr. Trump’s victory on the lack of education, racism and misogyny of his supporters. But the revival of the cult of liberal capitalism appeared elusive; it needed visions of a demon at the door. Enter Russia. Mr. Trump’s suspected ties with Russia and its President Vladimir Putin have remained the obsessive theme of American media almost every day for more than a year now. Ms. Pelosi’s explanation of Mr. Tillerson’s sacking would have fitted perfectly with the bizarre notion that has become the new Washington Consensus: a President allegedly helped into office by the country’s arch-enemy. But for the fact that until recently Mr. Tillerson himself was accused of being soft on Russia.
•The insinuation that Mr. Tillerson had questionable links to Russia coursed through reporting on him since the day his appointment was announced. This March alone, news reports linked Mr. Tillerson to the State Department’s failure to spend the $120 million available to it for countering Russian influence operations; a widely commended profile of a former British spy, Christopher Steele, who prepared a salacious dossier on Mr. Trump for the Hillary Clinton campaign, in the New Yorker, suggested that the President may have acted on the Kremlin’s advice in not appointing former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney as his Secretary of State. “The choice [of Mr. Tillerson] was a surprise to most, and a happy one in Moscow,” the article said, and blamed him for not being tough on Russia.
What is Russia accused of?
•The moment he was sacked, Mr. Tillerson became the anti-Russia hero who had paid the price for his boldness. “Russia is at war with us right now,” said James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence, discussing Mr. Tillerson’s dismissal on CNN. “He has been an advocate for more muscular response to Russia.”
•Reporting on what is loosely called “Russia collision” is largely based on selective leaks. The substantive allegations against Russia are in a court document filed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, indicting 13 individuals and some entities connected to Russia. He has charged them with “information warfare” against the U.S. and “spreading distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general” in the context of the 2016 election.
•Starting in 2014, Russians spent “thousands of dollars every month,” the indictment says. The amount was around $100,000 between 2015 and 2017, according to Facebook — the key platform of this alleged Russian operation — which deposed before a U.S. legislative committee through its lawyer. Russian-linked entities placed ads that in turn led users to Facebook pages on which they ran propaganda. They posted 80,000 pieces of content over the same time. For context, during the same years, American users saw 11.1 trillion Facebook posts. Facebook told the committee that 126 million people may have seen a post generated by Russian operatives or bots, 56% of which happened after the election. As per the indictment, some Russians misrepresented their purpose and travelled to the U.S. to collect intelligence on the country’s political process, and from unwitting Americans, they learned they should focus their campaign on “purple states like Colorado, Virginia and Florida.” Meanwhile, $1.2 billion was spent on Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and $600 million on Mr. Trump. The indictment says the Russian campaign supported Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary and Mr. Trump during the presidential election. They also magnified Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and groups such as Black Lives Matter.
•Whether or not all this constitutes an act of war as concluded by Mr. Clapper, what is unmistakable is the pervasive bipartisan push for tougher retaliation against Russia. The Trump administration is willing to oblige them. With two documents in recent months, the National Security Strategy and the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the U.S. has declared Russia as its main adversary, slightly above China in the order, and left little room open for reconciliation. The NPR declares that the era of great power rivalry is back, and has lowered America’s threshold for a nuclear first strike, citing Russia as the main reason. All-round modernisation of its nuclear infrastructure, by upgrading delivery systems, weapons and defence systems, and widespread battlefield deployment of tactical nuclear weapons are part of the new posture. All of this is estimated to cost more than a trillion dollars in inflation adjusted dollars, assuming no cost overruns, over the next 30 years. Stocks of American defence companies have consistently outperformed the market since Mr. Trump came to power. His administration has a declared policy of “hard power, not soft power.” How much more muscular could it get? On Thursday, two days after sacking Mr. Tillerson, the White House announced a new round of sanctions against Russia.
•The ability of a journalist or a citizen to independently verify the allegations against Russia is only as much she had in verifying the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, before the U.S. invaded the country in 2003. Assuming that all that has been said and all that can be said about it is true, the current obsession of the American elite with Russia is still counterproductive and potentially dangerous in at least two ways.
•First, it disenfranchises U.S. citizens and delegitimises its democratic process. The groundswell of public outrage against America’s economic and strategic culture took two forms in 2016. Mr. Sanders represented one; and Mr. Trump represented the other. As the only advanced country in the world where life expectancy is falling, where 96 people die from gun violence every day, where heroin related deaths increased six-fold since 2002, where opioid overdose kills 115 people a day, the signs of distress are unmistakable. It is unclear whether Mr. Trump relied on Russian intelligence to run a scorched-earth campaign in swing States in the last days of the 2016 campaign; without any inputs from Russia, Ms. Clinton also focussed her efforts on swing States, though not as much as her rival. What is clear is that those who voted were Americans. By repeatedly asserting that it is impossible to determine the extent of Russian imprint on the Sanders movement or Mr. Trump’s victory, the onus has been shifted to any citizen critical of the American system to first prove that she is not acting on behalf of Russia or, even worse, she is not a Russian bot. The theocratic enthusiasm to protect American democracy from Russian digital pamphlets is, ironically, undercutting it.
This neo-McCarthyism
•While this denial of agency to its average citizens can corrode America’s democracy further, a second upshot of this neo-McCarthyism is that it has rendered any diplomacy between the nuclear rivals impossible. The ‘Russia collusion’ commentaries presuppose that unless proven otherwise any contact between a Trump official and a Russian is illegitimate and treason. When a democratically elected President’s authority to pursue diplomacy is undermined, the U.S.’s political system is weakened and the world becomes a more dangerous place. The Russia prism has not merely bent perspective, but blinded vision in America. Perhaps, deliberately and conveniently.
📰 ‘Can’t compare Sri Lanka refugees and Rohingya’
Centre tells SC that Rohingya stand on a different footing
•Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, who fled the war in the island nation in the 1980s, stood on a “different footing” from the Rohingyas who seek shelter from persecution in native Myanmar. Any comparison between the two is misconceived, the Centre has told the Supreme Court.
•The Centre was responding to comparisons made by the Rohingya in the Supreme Court between their plight and the “relief facilities” given to the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees. The Rohingya have sought the same aid and the benevolence India had shown the Sri Lankan Tamils.
Centre’s affidavit
•But a six-page government affidavit filed in the Supreme Court on Friday said there was no “comparable parity” between the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees and Rohingya.
•It explained that India reached out to the Sri Lankan Tamils on the basis of two Indo-Sri Lankan Agreements signed in 1964 and 1979.
•India had agreed to repatriate and grant Indian citizenship to six lakh persons of Indian origin “together with their natural increase by 1981-82.”
•The government denied the charge that the Rohingya were met with stun grenades and chilli powder at the Indian border. It said the Border Security Force performed its duties in challenging circumstances.
•The Supreme Court cannot direct the government to “ensure that foreigners enter the territory of India,” it said. The law mandates that a foreigner entering India should have a passport.
📰 German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to visit India next week
Focus on cooperation on cleaning river Ganga
•India will host German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier next week. The visit is the first major outreach from Germanyafter the new government led by Chancellor Angela Merkel was sworn in on March 14.
•“This will be his first visit to India as the President of Germany. The German President will be accompanied by a CEO delegation, Indologists, and a media delegation,” said the Ministry of External Affairs on Friday. The dignitary will visit between March 22 and 25. Mr. Steinmeier will attend programmes in Varanasi and Chennai. The visit to Varanasi is likely to be focussed on India-Germany cooperation on cleaning the river Ganga.
•The National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) and GIZ Germany signed an Implementation Agreement for Ganga Rejuvenation on April 13, 2016 under which Germany committed €3 million for data management and capacity building to deal with the pollution of the greatest river of India.
📰 Won't touch Ram Sethu; will explore alternative route, Centre tells SC
The government said cutting a route through the Ram Sethu would be a cause of “socio-economic disadvantage”.
•The Union government told the Supreme Court on Friday that it will not touch the Ram Sethu, an underwater coral formation in the Indian Ocean referred in mythology Ramayana, for the implementation of the Sethusamudram Ship Channel Project.
•The government said cutting a route through the Ram Sethu, also known as Adam’s Bridge, would be a cause of “socio-economic disadvantage”.
•This is part of a one-page affidavit filed by the Shipping Ministry almost four years after the Supreme Court asked the government to “come clean” on the choice of the project’s route and whether it would damage the Ram Sethu.
Swamy's plea
•BJP leader Dr. Subramanian Swamy had, as early as 2014, asked the apex court to verify whether a Cabinet decision was taken to “not touch” the Ram Sethu for the project.
•Mr. Swamy mentioned his plea again on Friday before a Bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra.
•Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand told the court that an affidavit had been filed stating the government’s position.
•The affidavit said instead of Alignment 6 (the route which cuts through the Ram Sethu), the government would explore an “alternative”.
•“The government of India intends to explore an alternative to the earlier alignment of Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project without affecting/damaging the Adam’s Bridge/Ram Sethu in the interest of the nation,” the Ministry affidavit said.
•In 2016, the apex court granted Mr. Swamy liberty to approach the court if the Centre as much as “touched” the Ram Sethu during the project implementation.
•Mr. Swamy had requested the court for mandamus to direct the government “to follow any other alternative route or alignment without affecting or destroying or demolishing the historic and sacred place Ram Sethu”.
Formation of committee
•Acting on the suggestions of the Supreme Court, the government appointed a committee under R.K. Pachauri to study whether an alternative route to Alignment 6 was feasible.
•The committee was to consider if construction of the project was viable along Alignment 4A, an alternative route running on land north of Dhanushkodi, thereby avoiding any chances of affecting the Ram Sethu,
•The court then reserved its judgment until such time the government got Alignment 4A evaluated and a report submitted to it.
•The committee referred the question of Alignment 4A to the Goa-based National Institute of Oceanography (NIO).
•Mr. Swamy had alleged that the NIO completed the study and handed over a report to the government in March 2009.
•He had voiced apprehensions that the report may never be submitted in the Supreme Court as the consequences may be to the scrap the project itself.
•The court also wanted to know the government’s position on whether the ancient Ram Sethu could be declared a national monument.
📰 Higher trade deficit pushes up Q3 CAD to 2% of GDP at $13.5 bn
•The current account deficit (CAD) rose to 2% of the GDP or $13.5 billion in the December quarter, up from $8 billion or 1.4% in the year-ago period, on the back of higher trade deficit, according to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data.
•The CAD, which shows the difference between foreign exchange earned and spent, stood at $7.2 billion or 1.1% of gross domestic product (GDP) in the preceding September quarter, according to the data released by the central bank on Friday.
•“The widening of the CAD on a year-on-year basis is primarily due to a higher trade deficit which rose to $44.1 billion in the reporting quarter due to a larger increase in merchandise imports relative to exports,” the central bank said in a statement.
•On a cumulative basis, CAD more than doubled to 1.9% of GDP in the April-December 2017 period from 0.7% in the corresponding period of 2016-17 due to wider trade deficit, which increased to $118.9 billion from $82.7 billion.
•Net services’ receipts rose 17.8% during the reporting quarter mainly on the back of a rise in net earnings from software services and travel receipts.
•Private transfer receipts, mainly representing remittances, amounted to $17.6 billion, an increase of 16% from over a year ago.
•In the financial account, net foreign direct investment stood at USD 4.3 billion, almost 55 per cent less than in the year-ago period when it was at USD 9.7 billion, the apex bank data showed.
•However, net portfolio investment inflows were in the green at USD 5.3 billion in Q3, compare to an outflow of USD 11.3 billion in the year-ago period, due to net purchases in both the debt and equity markets.
•Net receipts on account of non-resident deposits amounted to USD 3.1 billion in the reporting quarter as against net repayments of USD 18.5 billion a year ago.
•During the three months to December 2017, the forex kitty swelled by USD 9.4 billion (on balance of payment basis) as against a depletion of USD 1.2 billion in Q3 of FY17.
•During this period, forex kitty saw an accretion USD 30.3 billion to the foreign exchange reserves.
•Net FDI inflows during April-December 2017 declined to USD 23.7 billion from USD 30.6 billion, while net portfolio inflows stood at USD 19.8 billion during the period as against a net outflow of USD 3.2 billion a year ago.
📰 ‘Export promotion schemes opposed by U.S. not subsidies’
Measures help offset logistics costs: Textile Commissioner
•Programmes such as the Export Promotion Capital Goods Scheme offered by India for exporters, that have been challenged by the U.S. at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), are not subsidies, according to a senior Union Textile Ministry official.
‘Not reimbursed’
•These are given mainly to equalise the costs incurred by the industry with the international costs, Textile Commissioner Kavita Gupta told The Hindu here on Friday. “We are not giving subsidies. Industries face high logistics costs and State levies and these are not reimbursed. Schemes such as the Merchandise Exports From India are to offset these costs. The Export Promotion Capital Goods Scheme is for adoption of better technology.” The total textile exports this financial year was expected to be about $40 billion. This was almost the same as last year. There were several reasons that are affecting exports such as contraction of international demand, she said.
•“There is tremendous potential for exports. Export of value-added products such as garments, made- ups and technical textiles should increase to pull up the downstream segments of textiles. Investors should invest in these sectors,” Ms. Gupta earlier told journalists.
•With the special packages that were announced by the Union Government for made-ups and garments, five lakh to seven lakh new jobs (direct and indirect) were created.
•Apart from investments in spinning and ginning segments, investments of more than ₹30,000 crore happened in the last three to four years across the value chain under the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme. On increasing imports, she said the ministry had been deliberating on these issues to see how best it could be resolved.
•“I am sure some solution is going to emerge soon,” she said. Regarding Rebate of State Levies, she said the ministry had got about ₹900 crore and it would be released soon. The ministry is also pursuing with the government on the additional funds required for the scheme. The office of the Textile Commissioner has given proposals related to Technology Mission on Cotton and Technology Mission on Technical Textiles to the Textile Ministry.
📰 Grounding of aircraft won’t hit services: Jayant Sinha
Minister says cancellations amount to just 2% of capacity
•Even as Indigo and GoAir announced cancellations of close to 630 domestic flights this month, Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha on Friday said that it was important to note that this was just 2% of capacity and that with two new planes being added every week, the government expected supply-demand to be back in balance quickly.
•In a tweet, Mr. Sinha said that 17 engines (14 aircraft) were grounded due to safety considerations. “Recently some concerns had been raised in the media regarding grounding of aircraft with specified neo engines and resultant cancellations of flights.
•“This is to bring to the attention of the public that the capacity impacted by this measure, which has been done to ensure safety in the sky, impacts only a small proportion (1-2%) of the overall capacity in the system.”
•A note circulated by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, said that while 17 engines were grounded, there were still 1,174 in service; i.e., only 1.4% are grounded. Similarly, it was also informed that while the number of aircraft grounded was 14, there were 582 aircraft under scheduled operation; i.e., 2.4 %.
•“Between March 15 and 21 there are 378 cancellations. But 18,781 departures have also been planned, which put the cancellations at 2%,” a Ministry official said. The Ministry statement also said that the 1-2% capacity impact on the system is small in the light of the industry adding capacity at 20% year-on-year.
•“A 1.5 to 2% capacity growth is taking place every month. The capacity impact of this safety measure is expected to be mitigated in a few weeks,” the Ministry said.
•IndiGo’s cancellations include 36 daily flights between March 15 and March 21; 18 between March 22 and March 24 and 16 between March 25 and March 31. GoAir has cancelled seven daily flights to 10 destinations between March 16 and March 24 apart from cancelling six services per week between March 15 and March 22.
Worst hit
•Aviation analysts said the passenger load factor recorded for both these airlines in January was 90% and that the cancellations would hit an estimated 1 lakh passengers. “The impact of cancellations is expected to be more severe next month when the airlines’ summer schedule begins,” Reji Philip of Mumbai’s Cosmos Travels said.
📰 CETC India starts work on solar unit
•CETC (India), an ancillary of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), is setting up a solar photovoltaic cell (PVC) manufacturing park at Sri City, near here, according to a top official.
•The first phase of the project would go on stream in 18 to 20 months. The civil work for the construction of the facility had already commenced.
•According to Liu Liehong, general manager, CEO, CETC, the firm chose Sri City for the project after surveying various sites in India. The plant, which would be built on a plot of 18 acres in the domestic tariff zone at an initial investment of about ₹320 crore, would be commissioned by the last quarter of 2019.
📰 The long fight against TB
To outsmart the disease, India must intercept infection, progression and transmission
•Science borrows words from common parlance and assigns quantifiable meanings. For example, “significance” in biostatistics, measured by ‘p’ value, clarifies if a study result is reliable or mere chance finding. “Incidence” in epidemiology is a rate: new cases per unit population, per unit time. The incidence rate of tuberculosis (TB) in India is estimated at 200-300 cases per 100,000 population per year. As a comparison, in western Europe it is five per 100,000 per year.
•“Control” in public health is “deliberate reduction of incidence to a desired and defined level by specific interventions”. Without monitoring incidence and defining the desired target, the Revised National TB Control Programme (RNTCP) is not a valid control programme, but a great humanitarian programme of free diagnosis and treatment.
•India’s estimated annual TB burden is 28 lakh, 27% of the global total; our population is only 18%. Every day 1,200 Indians die of TB — 10 every three minutes. The tragedy 1,200 families face every day is beyond imagination. No other disease or calamity has such Himalayan magnitude. Had control efforts registered even pass grade, we would not have become the TB capital of the world.
Know the enemy
•Infection with TB bacilli is the necessary cause of TB, a disease that mimics other diseases, confusing doctors and delaying diagnosis. Cough and blood in sputum occur only in lung TB. For example, a young man developed headache and began making silly mistakes in arithmetic. He had brain TB and treatment cured him. Pelvic TB is the commonest cause of female infertility in India. TB can affect the lungs, brain, bones, joints, the liver, intestines or for that matter any organ and can progress slowly or kill in weeks.
•In designing TB control three processes must be understood: infection, progression, transmission. Infection occurs when TB bacilli are inhaled. Bacilli may stay in the lungs or travel to other organs. Infection is lifelong, with bacilli lying dormant. This phase is “latent TB”, diagnosed by a tuberculin skin test (TST). The “annual rate of TB infection” (ARTI) is about 1%. Cumulatively, 40% to 70% of us are living with latent TB. From this reservoir pool, a few progress to TB disease, one by one, 5-30 years, average 20 years, later.
•Progression occurs when bacilli become active, multiply and cause pathology; now we have “active TB”. Only when active TB affects the lungs do bacilli find an exit route to the atmosphere, necessary for transmission.
Principles of control
•All of us, the public, health-care professionals, Health Ministry policy planners and implementers, must form a united battlefront. Beginning with schools, public education on TB and its prevention must replace ignorance and misconceptions.
•Transmission and infection are ends of a tunnel. If no one spits in public places and if everyone practises cough and sneeze etiquette (covering one’s mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing), the TB affected will also fall in line.
•A person with lung TB disseminates TB bacilli over several weeks. By the time treatment stops dissemination, unfortunately, all his close contacts would have been already infected. This is why TB treatment has not brought down the TB burden.
•To block transmission, treatment should begin as soon as a symptom shows up. RNTCP guidelines — for testing only after two weeks of cough — result in the loss of precious lead time. Some 70% of people seek health care in the private sector. As cough is a very common symptom of many diseases, doctors don’t think of TB until other treatments fail. Frustrated patients also shop around until someone thinks of TB; bingo, the sputum test is positive. While treatment is the patient’s urgent need, it will not control TB. It is like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.
•Partnership with the private sector is essential for early diagnosis of TB. Delay in diagnosis, for which we are notorious, is a fallout of the lack of efficient primary health care. Universal primary health care, a basic human right, and a diagnostic algorithm for early diagnosis are essential for TB control. Every country that has reduced TB incidence practises universal health care.
•How can progression be retarded? The biomedical method is drug treatment of latent TB. Experts recommend an age window of 5-10 years when all children must be screened with TST; those with latent TB must be treated to prevent progression. The spin-off is in getting annual data on ARTI to track the trajectory of decline. A yearly 5% reduction of ARTI is achievable. In 20 years we can be on a par with western Europe in terms of infection incidence. Active TB will also decline, but more slowly.
Now or never
•To outsmart TB bacilli, we must intercept infection, progression and transmission. While TB bacilli are efficient in all three, our weapons against them are blunt. Our only chance of victory is by the concerted use of all interventions — biomedical and socio-behavioural. There is no glamour in this long-drawn-out battle.
•Any further delay may convert a controllable disease into an uncontrollable one, because of increasing frequency of resistance to drugs against TB.
