📰 Include Chin refugees in citizenship Bill: Chakma NGOs
The JPC had earlier rejected suggestions to include minorities from Myanmar and Sri Lanka
•Eight organisations of the Chakma community on Tuesday submitted a memorandum to the Ministry of Home Affairs seeking the inclusion of Chin refugees in India by further amending the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016.
•The Bill awaits passage or rejection in the Rajya Sabha.
•The Joint Parliamentary Committee that submitted its recommendations to the Centre after a series of discussions with stakeholders had rejected suggestions to include minorities from Myanmar and Sri Lanka.
HRW report
•The memorandum was made on the basis of a January 2009 report by the US-based Human Rights Watch titled ‘The Chin People of Burma: Unsafe in Burma, Unprotected in India’.
•The report said that there are an estimated 100,000 Chins in Mizoram, which is 20% of the total Chin population in Myanmar.
•Manipur too has an unspecified number of Chins, who are ethnically related to the majority Mizos of Mizoram and the Kuki-Zomi groups in Manipur.
•“The number of Chin refugees in India is at least 1.2 lakh. In November 2017, about 1,600 Chins, many of whom were women and children, fled to Lawngtlai district of Mizoram following a military offensive against the Arakan Army militants in that country’s Chin State. While some went back, around 1,440 refugees have reportedly refused to return due to insecurity,” said Dilip Kanti Chakma, president of the Delhi-based All India Chakma Students’ Union.
Refugee status
•About 4,000 Chin refugees are registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office in New Delhi but in June 2018, the UNHCR decided to cancel their ‘refugee status’ with effect from August 1, 2018. The ‘cessation process’ would be completed by December 31 this year on the ground that Myanmar has now become “stable and secure” for them to return home and, therefore, they don’t need “international protection”.
•“We appealed to the Centre to further amend the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill for including Myanmar along with Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan,” Mr. Chakma said.
📰 Rajasthan Zika strain is endemic to Asia, says new study
National Institute of Virology paper contradicts Health Ministry release that suggested Brazilian-like strain had entered India
•The Zika virus that infected 159 people in an outbreak in Rajasthan last year, could have been circulating in India for several years and is endemic to Asia, according to a new study published in the journal Infection, Genetics and Evolution this week.
•The study, led by authors from Pune’s National Institute of Virology (NIV), an institute under the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), is the first to sequence full Zika virus genomes from India.
Confers herd immunity
•“The finding that the outbreak was caused by an endemic virus is quite important,” said Nathan Grubaugh, an epidemiologist from the Yale School of Public Health, who was not involved in the study.
•“It suggests that people in the region may have been previously exposed to the virus, building herd immunity that may limit future outbreaks.”
•During the latter half of 2018, India recorded its first major Zika outbreaks in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.
•Around then, the ICMR said the Rajasthan virus had been sequenced and was closely related to a virus that had caused large epidemics and birth defects in Latin America in 2015.
•Then, in November 2018, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare issued a press release, citing the NIV's research, to say that “known mutations” for foetal microcephaly were not present in the Rajasthan strain.
•The Hindu has previously reported that the statement about “known mutations” was interpreted by MP’s health authorities to mean that the Indian viral strain could not cause birth defects. The Ministry and ICMR were criticised for the misleading wording, but did not issue a clarification.
Crucial contradictions
•This week’s publication contradicts the the ICMR's previous statements in two ways. First, it indicates that the Rajasthan Zika strain is not closely related to the Brazilian one.
•“It appears that the Indian strain has been around for a while…The Brazilian strain diverged more recently,” said Farah Ishtiaq, who studies the effects of infectious diseases on ecology at Bengaluru’s Indian Institute of Science.
•Prof. Grubaugh adds that the phylogenetic analysis in the paper, along with previous research, suggests that the virus has been in Asia for “at least 50 years”.
•“Based on limited data, I suspect it is [endemic to India],” he added.
•While this is good news, because it implies that a portion of the population could be immune, it could also mean that Zika-related birth defects such as microcephaly were occurring even before the virus was first detected in India.
•The NIV paper is also more cautious than the Ministry’s press release on the implications of a mutation in the viral genome called S139N.
•In a 2017 paper published in Science, the existence of this mutation in the Brazilian strain was linked, using animal data, with microcephaly.
•Based on this paper, the Ministry press release had said the Rajasthan strain didn’t have the “known mutation”.
•The current paper says: “A word of caution should be maintained on the claims of these mutations on the development of microcephaly in humans, given no direct clinical evidence of their effect.”
•Emailed questions to Devendra T. Mourya, Director NIV and corresponding author on the paper, were not answered.
•While endemicity means that large outbreaks, such as the Brazilian one, may not occur in India, serosurveys are needed to confirm this, said Prof. Grubaugh. In a serosurvey, a sample of the population is tested for Zika antibodies.
Greenpeace faults Centre’s scheme to cut pollution
•There are 139 Indian cities that breach air pollution standards but are not included in the Centre's National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), says a report by Greenpeace and made public on Tuesday.
•The NCAP was launched by the government earlier this month and is a ₹300 crore initiative to reduce particulate matter (PM) pollution by 20-30% in at least 102 cities by 2024. Airpocalypse III, as the Greenpeace report is titled, analyses air pollution data of 313 cities and towns for the year 2017.
Beyond limits
•Of these 313 cities, 241 (77%) had PM10 levels beyond the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). These specify upper limits to a range of airborne chemicals and compounds.
•While 102 of these cities were included in the NCAP, the remaining 139 cities were left out.
•That’s because, say the authors of the report, the government’s list of 102 cities relied on average pollution data until 2015, whereas Airpocalypse III used data updated up to 2017.
•Even if the NCAP were to able to reduce pollution by 30% by 2024, 153 cities would still be left with pollution levels exceeding the NAAQS, the report added.
•Of the 139 cities that have not been included in the non-attainment list under the NCAP, there are several cities that have a population of more than 1 million, and PM levels (recorded in 2017) above NAAQS.
•These include: Ranchi, Dhanbad (Jharkhand); Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh); Chennai, Madurai (Tamil Nadu); Meerut (Uttar Pradesh); Pimpri-Chindwar, Thane, (Maharashtra); Surat, Rajkot, Vadodara (Gujarat); and Howrah (West Bengal).
•“Since the data for 2017 was available when NCAP was finalised, it would have made more sense to update the non-attainment list to include all such cities in the final NCAP,” said Sunil Dahiya of Greenpeace and one of the authors of the report.
•The 102 cities, identified as hotspots of pollution, were asked to submit a plan for how they would address the problem. Broadly, the plans include increasing the number of monitoring stations, providing technology support, conducting source apportionment studies, and strengthening enforcement.
•As part of the NCAP, cities have been given a specified number of days to implement specific measures such as “ensuring roads are pothole-free to improve traffic flow and thereby reduce dust” (within 60 days) or “ensuring strict action against unauthorised brick kilns” (within 30 days). It doesn’t specify an exact date for when these obligations kick in.
•The World Health Organisation’s database on air pollution over the years has listed Tier I and Tier II Indian cities as some of the most polluted places in the world. In 2018, 14 of the world’s 15 most polluted cities were in India. A study in the journal Lancet ranked India as No.1 on premature mortality and deaths from air pollution.
📰 Think universal basic capital
A simplistic universal basic income will not solve the fundamental problems of the economy
•India’s GDP is growing quite well, though there are disputes about whether it grew faster under the present or previous governments. There can be no dispute though that India needs to do much better to improve overall human development, in which it continues to be compared with countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Even its poorer sub-continental neighbours are improving health and education faster. Benefits of India’s economic growth must trickle down much faster to people at the bottom of the pyramid: to poorer farmers, landless rural labour, and hundreds of millions of workers living on the edge in low-paying, ‘flexible’ forms of employment with no social security.
•Economists seem to be offering three solutions to the economy’s structural problems. One, that there is no problem. Two, more privatisation. And, three, a universal basic income (UBI) to be provided by the state.
Ground still to be covered
•Many economists are juggling with statistics to prove that the Indian economy is doing quite well. It is providing enough jobs, they say. And, statistically, poverty has reduced a lot. However, even these economists admit that a lot more must be done to improve education and health care, and to address the persistent informality and small scale of enterprises that are providing most of the employment in the country.
•An ideological solution, accompanied with evidence that the government is unable to provide them, is more privatisation of public services. As U.S. President Ronald Reagan said, government is not the solution, it is the problem. However, the private sector is structurally not designed to provide affordable public services equitably. Milton Friedman, who too is often cited, said, the business of business must be only business. Businesses must be run with a profit motive. They cannot take on the burden of subsidising citizens who cannot pay for their services.
Disruption and basic income
•Structural forces within the global economy have been driving down wages and creating insecure employment while increasing the mobility of capital and increasing incomes from ownership of capital. Thomas Piketty and Oxfam have also drawn attention to increasing economic inequalities around the world. ‘Industry 4.0’, which has not yet spread too far, is expected to worsen these problems. An economic consequence of declining growth of wage incomes will be reduction of consumption. Which will create problems for owners of capital and automated Industry 4.0 production systems. For, who will buy all the material and services that these systems will produce? Therefore, the UBI has appeared as a silver bullet solution. It will be an income provided to everybody by the very state that the capitalists say should get out of their way, and to whom they are unwilling to pay more taxes.
•The beauty of a ‘universal’ basic income, its proponents say, is that it avoids messy political questions about who deserves assistance. It also side-steps the challenge of actually providing the services required: education, health, food, etc. Just give the people cash: let them buy what they need. However, if the cash will not provide citizens with good quality and affordable education and health, because neither the government nor the private sector is able or willing to, this will not solve the basic human development problems that must be solved.
•Some economists who were proponents of UBI, such as Arvind Subramanian, the former Chief Economic Adviser to the Government, have begun to dilute their simplistic concept of UBI to make it financially and politically feasible. They propose a QUBRI (quasi-universal basic rural income), targeted only at poorer people in the rural areas. Their scheme is no longer universal. First, it will exclude the not-so-poor in rural areas as morally it should. Political questions about who should be included will have to be addressed. Second, it will not cover the masses of urban poor working for low and uncertain wages. Therefore, some other schemes will have to be drawn up for the urban sector, and entitlement and measurement issues will have to be addressed for these schemes too. All the schemes, rural and urban, could be cash transfer schemes, which Aadhar and the digitisation of financial services will facilitate. However, this still begs the question about how to provide good quality public services for people to buy.
•A simplistic UBI will not solve the fundamental problems of the economy. An unavoidable solution to fix India’s fundamental problems is the strengthening of institutions of the state to deliver the services the state must (public safety, justice, and basic education and health), which should be available to all citizens regardless of their ability to pay for them. The institutions of the state must be strengthened also to regulate delivery of services by the private sector and ensure fair competition in the market. The building of state institutions, to deliver and to regulate, will require stronger management, administrative, and political capabilities, not better economists.
Economic inequality matters
•Some economists say that inequality does not matter so long as poverty is being reduced. In fact, some even say that inequality is necessary to reduce poverty. So long as the people have bread, why should they complain if the rich are eating more cake, they imply. However, economic inequality does matter because it increases social and political inequalities. Those with more wealth change the rules of the game to protect and increase their wealth and power. Thus, opportunities for progress become unequal. This is why economic inequality must be reduced to create a more just society.
•In the present economic system, people at the top can make more profits by driving down prices and wages for people at the bottom. They may then recycle a small portion of their profits back as philanthropy, or corporate social responsibility. Or, if they were willing to, which they are not, pay the state more taxes to provide services, and even a UBI, to people at the bottom. Tiny enterprises have very little clout compared with large capitalist enterprises; and individual workers have little power compared with their employers. Therefore, terms of trade remain unfair for small enterprises, and terms of employment unfair for unorganised workers. The solution is the aggregation of the small into larger associations, cooperatives, and unions. Aggregations of small producers, and unions of workers, can negotiate for more fair terms.
An alternative approach
•A better solution to structural inequality than UBI is universal basic capital, or UBC, which has begun to pop up in international policy circles. In this alternative approach, people own the wealth they generate as shareholders of their collective enterprises. Amul, SEWA, Grameen, and others have shown a way. Some economists go further and also propose a ‘dividend’ for all citizens, by providing them a share of initial public offerings on the stock market, especially from companies that use ‘public assets’, such as publicly funded research, or environmental resources.
•To conclude, three better solutions to create more equitable growth than the ones on offer are: one, focus on building state capacity beginning with implementation of the recommendations of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission. Two, strengthen the missing middle-level institutions for aggregation of tiny enterprises and representation of workers. Three, the creativity of economists could be better applied to developing ideas for UBC than UBI.
📰 Clearer TV: on TRAI's order on broadcasting, cable services
New TRAI order provides for greater choice and transparency on pricing of channels
•The tariff order on broadcasting and cable services issued by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is set to become effective on February 1, giving the consumer the option to pay only for those channels she wants to watch. Under the scheme, there is also a maximum price for pay channels declared by the broadcaster, which is reported to TRAI, bringing about greater transparency. Each channel will be available on an a la carte basis. The effect is that the consumer’s subscription cost on a base package of 100 standard definition television channels is fixed in the form of a network capacity fee. And even within this group, there is freedom to choose channels, with a provision for appropriate revision for any pay channels. This is a welcome departure from a regime where combinations of free and pay channels were decided by distributors and broadcasters as bouquets that did not reflect actual demand for individual channels. Efforts to introduce a la carte choice were thwarted by pricing individual channels almost as high as the bouquets they were part of. Bouquets are enabled in the new scheme, but with the stipulation that at least 85% of the total price of all channels that form part of a bouquet be charged, removing the incentive to distort prices. Distributors including cable and DTH platforms, and advertisers, should welcome the order, which strengthens price discovery and eliminates inflated claims of the subscriber base.
•Television in the conventional sense has changed in the era of the Internet, with the emergence of new distribution possibilities. Many broadcasters, including popular news channels, provide their content free on platforms such as YouTube and through mobile phone applications, reaching global audiences. Global Over the Top (OTT) providers such as Netflix and Amazon Prime have opened a new front and are competing for viewers who get advertisement-free programming streamed on subscription. TRAI has made clear that since broadcast licensing does not apply to such new technology platforms, these do not come under price regulation. In the fast-changing competitive landscape of home entertainment, conventional TV must now compete on the strength of transparent pricing and better programming for subscription revenue growth and viewer time that attracts advertising. Industry data show that there are about 197 million homes in India with a TV set, and 100 million more homes without one represent scope for growth. This can be achieved through regulatory schemes that empower broadcasters and subscribers alike. TRAI has done well to put up a calculator on its website to help consumers calculate bills under the new regime before signing up for a package with the operator. The broadcast industry must welcome a new era that promises to remove distribution bottlenecks and empower consumers with choice.
📰 Success for golden langur breeding project in Assam
Langur shifted to zoo in 2018 gives birth to a female
•Assam Environment and Forest Minister Parimal Shuklabaidya on Tuesday announced the success of the Golden Langur Conservation Breeding Programme in the State.
•The golden langur conservation project was undertaken at the Assam State Zoo in Guwahati during the 2011-12 fiscal.
Natural habitat
•Funded by the Central Zoo Authority, an isolated and undisturbed site within the zoo was chosen to provide a natural habitat for the primates with a golden coat endemic to Assam.
•In April 2018, the zoo authorities shifted a pair of golden langurs — Bolin and Lovely — from the display enclosure to the isolated site. Lovely gave birth to a female infant on December 26.
•“The success of the programme is because of the untiring efforts of the zoo team. The baby is the golden hope of Assam State Zoo,” Mr. Shuklabaidya said. Zoo officials said Lovely has been fiercely guarding her baby.
•The golden langur ( Trachypithecus geei ) is currently endangered.
•Apart from a 60 square mile area in north-western Assam, small populations are found in Bhutan and Tripura.
