📰 Crucial week ahead for India's diplomatic offensive against Azhar, JeM
Diplomats in Delhi and New York say they have begun negotiations on a new proposal to place Azhar on ban list operated by UNSC’s 1267 committee.
•With both the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and Paris-based Financial Action Task Force issuing strong statements on the February 14 Pulwama terror attack and calling on Pakistan to act against the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), diplomats in Delhi and New York say they have begun negotiations on a new proposal to place JeM chief Masood Azhar on the ban list operated by the UNSC’s 1267 committee, the fourth such request in four consecutive years.
•The effort, being coordinated by France among its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the embassy in Delhi and the U.N. mission in New York, is likely to take some weeks, the diplomats said.
•In March, by coincidence, France will also take over the presidency of the UNSC, which comprises 5 permanent and 10 non-permanent members.
•“When the attack happened, we realised that we would need to tackle this [listing] in a two-step, by first formulating a statement from the UNSC and then try to ensure consensus on the proposal to [ban Masood Azhar],” a western diplomat told The Hindu. “While technical preparations are expected to take a few weeks, the next two-three days will be crucial,” he said.
•The most important meeting in this regard will come on February 27, when Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj meets Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi.
Beijing's stance
•Beijing has vetoed all the past three attempts to list Azhar: in 2016 and the subsequent two years. Ms. Swaraj is expected to meet Mr. Wang for the trilateral meeting of Russia-India-China (RIC) Foreign Ministers along with Russia's Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov in Wuzhen, and then will meet both bilaterally.
•“It will be critical to see what role Russia plays in this effort, not just on supporting India, but on actively convincing China to withdraw its objections to the listing,” the diplomat said.
•China agreed to the UNSC press statement that named the JeM after considerable wrangling over the wording, particularly insisting on leaving out any direct reference to Pakistan in it and objecting to any “political statements,” diplomats aware of the negotiations in New York said.
•At one point, talks nearly broke down with the U.S. and China at loggerheads, and the French delegation went in to forge an agreement on a carefully worded statement that would send a “strong signal” to Pakistan.
•The extent of the disagreement was evident from the relatively much quicker response from the UNSC to a similar attack which killed 27 Iranian soldiers in Sistan, Baluchistan on February 13, a day before the Pulwama attack.
•Despite the U.S.’s other issues with Iran, the UNSC was able to issue its statement on February 14, while the statement on Pulwama came a week later, on February 21.
•Acknowledging the delay in a tweet, India’s ambassador to the UN, Syed Akbaruddin, who worked behind the scenes on the final statement, wrote: “A statement with many firsts takes more time than expected. In complex diplomatic situations, however, it is better to be late than never.”
Foreign Secretary to meet Ambassadors
•Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale is coordinating the diplomatic pressure India hopes to build on Pakistan in the coming weeks by meeting focused groups of Ambassadors from different regions with specific lists of expectations from each.
•In particular, officials said the European Union (EU) is being asked to add Pakistan to its own 'black list' and to conduct a serious review of the GSP+ (Generalised System of Preferences) status if it fails to crack down on the groups targeting India, particularly the JeM and the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
•At present the EU had put only DPRK or North Korea on its black list. For the moment, however, the Azhar listing is top priority for the government, and the need to convince China to turn its vote against him high on the diplomatic agenda, officials said.
Directs Election Commission to respond to appellant who had sought one.
•An Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) is “information” under the Right to Information Act, the Central Information Commission has ruled.
•The Commission was hearing the appeal of an RTI applicant who had asked the Election Commission for an EVM but was denied.
•Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) Sudhir Bhargava ruled that “the EVM which is available with the respondent [ECI] in a material form and also as samples … is an information under the RTI Act.”
•EVMs have been in the spotlight recently as several Opposition leaders have raised doubts about the credibility of the machines. They have also demanded that the ECI cross-check 50% of results with voter-verifiable paper audit trails (VVPAT) in the upcoming Lok Sabha poll.
•Mr. Bhargava noted that the definition of information under Section 2(f) of the RTI Act includes “any material in any form, including records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, samples, models, data material held in any electronic form…”
•The CIC upheld applicant Razaak K. Haidar’s contention that the terms “models” and “samples” should apply to an EVM.
•ECI Under-Secretary Soumyajit Ghosh admitted that “models/samples of EVM are available with the ECI, but the same are only kept for training purpose by the ECI, and not saleable to the general public.”
Fresh argument
•Mr. Ghosh also argued that the information was exempted from disclosure under Section 8(1)(d) of the RTI Act as “the software installed in the machines is an intellectual property of a third party, the disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of the third party concerned.”
•Mr. Bhargava noted this fresh argument, but did not rule on it. Instead, he directed the ECI to file an appropriate response to the appellant within four weeks, as it had erroneously denied the information sought, using Section 6(1) of the RTI Act, which does not deal with grounds for exemption.
📰 After Pulwama, a sorry response
The government and the Opposition must state their policy for security and reconciliation in Jammu and Kashmir
•Like many others, I have watched events following the Pulwama tragedywith mounting stupefaction, not to mention rage and disgust. Rarely have I seen such a disingenuous response, and that is saying a lot considering we have been unable to deal adequately with Pakistan-based terrorists for decades.
Right time for questions
•We are told that this is not the time to ask questions. In fact, this is precisely the time. Forty of our security personnel have been killed in what appears to have been a preventable tragedy. We are told there was little or vague intelligence, but in fact the Jammu and Kashmir police advisory, sent a week prior to the attack, was specific that the Central Reserve Police Force deployment would be targeted. What is being done to ensure that operational lapses do not occur again? Moreover what about long overdue security reforms for troops that are sent into harm’s way, such as properly fortified vehicles and installations, not to mention adequate protective gear and shorter terms of duty? Will these basic safeguards be provided this time?
•Far from improving security, casualty figures within Jammu and Kashmir have mounted to levels far above what they were in the years preceding 2014. Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad says that 475 terrorists have been killed between 2015 and 2018 as against 249 in the three prior years, but omits the fact that the number of armed youth was below 200 from 2008 to 2013. This number shot up after 2016 and continues to rise. Nor does Mr. Prasad mention the figure of security forces killed. It stands at 358 killed between 2014-18, a rise of 93% over preceding years. There have been more than 1,700 terrorist attacks in the same years; and infiltration too has continued to rise, reaching 400 between 2016 and 2018. Are we not owed some explanation for this deteriorating security situation?
‘Coercive diplomacy’
•Bad as this is, what followed the Pulwama attack was even worse. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given the Indian Army the green light to respond as and when they consider appropriate. That is fine, and we will wait and see what the Army does. In the meantime, we are told, New Delhi is engaged in ‘coercive diplomacy’ to make the Pakistan government suffer diplomatic and economic consequences. Either they don’t know what coercive diplomacy is or they think we the people do not. Removing the Most Favoured Nation status is meaningless and raising tariffs on Pakistani goods is equally so given that the balance of trade with Pakistan is heavily in our favour. A threat to divert the surplus waters of the Indus’s eastern rivers, such as the Ravi and Beas, is again disingenuous, since it is anyway India’s right and will take over four years to materialise, without significantly hurting Pakistan. As for denying sports visas or pulling out of the World Cup, the former has already rebounded against India, with the International Olympic Committee downgrading the event.
•One point the government has missed is with regard to Russia. We are currently negotiating to buy Kalashnikov rifles from Russia, surely necessary for our security forces. But have we asked Moscow to cease, or at least freeze, arms sales to Pakistan until the Imran Khan government take credible action against the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM)?
Groundwork from the past
•So what is Mr. Modi’s National Democratic Alliance government doing? As far as one can see, it is mostly following in the steps of the United Progressive Alliance. Getting JeM chief Masood Azhar proscribed as an international terrorist under UNSCR 1267 was an initiative launched by the Manmohan Singh government, supported by France, the U.S. and the U.K. (and consistently blocked by China). The present government is right in persisting with this effort despite the move having had little impact on Pakistan, though it has gained a strong statement from the UN Security Council. What is wrong is the failure to acknowledge that it was his predecessor’s initiative and represents continuity of government policy. Such a recognition would go some way to justifying Mr. Modi’s demand for unity. In its absence, his demand appears hollow.
•In fact, the only step an Indian government took with serious consequences for Pakistan — including last week — was under the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which placed Pakistan on a grey list in 2012, making it difficult to get aid or loans from international agencies. On Friday, the FATF resolved to keep Pakistan on its grey list while issuing severe strictures at Pakistan’s failure to accept the threat that terrorist groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba and JeM pose. The results have been immediate though perhaps cosmetic: the Imran Khan administration has taken over seminaries in Bahawalpur and reinstated the ban on the Lashkar and affiliated organisations.
•Who first activated the FATF? It was the Manmohan Singh government, with substantial support from the U.S.’s Obama administration. And who came up with the proposal to activate the FATF? It was suggested at a Track II on Afghanistan in 2008-9, by Arundhati Ghose, one of our finest diplomats and a committed supporter of Track II, which our talking heads take such pleasure in reviling.
Kashmir crackdown
•Disingenuity pales in comparison, however, with the steps the government has taken in Jammu and Kashmir — or not taken. It is a sad commentary that the Supreme Court had to order immediate action to protect Kashmiri students and traders in the rest of the country. The Home and Human Resource Development Ministers have now swung belatedly into action, and on Saturday, Mr. Modi finally spoke on the issue at a rally in Tonk, Rajasthan. But, as of this writing, no action has been taken against Meghalaya Governor Tathagata Roy for his hate speech against Kashmiris.
•Blatant as the acts of omission are, it is the acts of commission that truly worry. The government first removed the security given to over 170 people, from Hurriyat leaders to members of Kashmiri political parties and new aspirants like former civil servant Shah Faesal. Now Jamaat-e-Islami members and the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front’s Yasin Malik have been detained. Why these arrests? Is there some evidence linking them to the Pulwama attack? Similarly, why the removal of security? There is a terrible canard doing the rounds that Kashmiri political parties are responsible for the militancy in the Valley. In fact, their members have risked and lost hundreds, in some cases thousands, of lives at the hands of armed radicals. What is the point of back-footing constitutional parties? Is it to justify the postponement of Assembly elections when the State urgently needs to move out of President’s rule?
•Indeed, what reason can there be for withdrawing security to Hurriyat leaders when successive Indian governments, including the current one, have provided them security? The only result has been to unite radical youth behind them, and to allow further radicalisation of the people of the Valley.
•A larger question that flows from the above is, does the government have any policy to make peace in Kashmir? Resolution through talks, especially with Kashmiri dissidents, has been axiomatic to government policy for three decades. Their most frequent interlocutors were the Hurriyat. Ironically, the Mirwaiz believed that only right-wing Indian political parties could make peace, offering the Modi government one of the best opportunities of any Indian government. That illusion was exploded in 2014 itself and stands in tatters today.
•Clearly, issues of peace, security and reconciliation in Jammu and Kashmir cannot be left to the government alone. It is time for Opposition parties to unite on a programme of sustained engagement with the people of the State, to show that the rest of India cares for the terrible suffering inflicted on them — and even more importantly, that there is political will to end the Kashmir conflict in partnership with the people, not against them.
📰 De-odourising sewage
India’s cities are drowning in waste — but no one is bothered
•The World Bank estimates that more than a fifth of all communicable diseases in India (21%) are caused by contaminated water. It attributes one in ten deaths in India to diseases or infections directly or indirectly transmitted through water. Over 500 children die every day in India due to diarrhoeal diseases.
Nitrogen, a growing pollutant
•Now, add nitrogen pollution to the list. According to a study by the Indian Nitrogen Group, a task force of scientists tracking the issue, the amount of reactive nitrogen in a bulk of the water bodies in India is already twice the limit prescribed by WHO. Nitrogen pollution from untreated sewage, the study found, now outstrips nitrogen pollution from the Indian farmer’s urea addiction.
•Prime Minister Narendra Modi has managed to make toilets top of the mind in our country, with his Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Toilets are being built in mission mode and there is enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that there has been a measurable reduction in the number of people defecating in the open, which stood at over 500 million — or half the population — a few years ago.
Clean India missions
•Ironically, India’s latest, largest and most significantly scaled attempt at cleanliness — the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan — is likely to add to this problem.
•Under the mission, in the past four years alone, over nine crore toilets have been constructed. Of these, only 60 lakh are in urban areas, where one assumes they are connected to some sort of sewage system (even this assumption is a stretch. A study done by the Centre for Science and Environment in 30 cities in Uttar Pradesh found that only 28% of toilets in these cities were connected to a sewage system). The rest will be generating fecal sludge, sewage and septage which has no place to go.
•Which means that that too will simply get dumped, polluting land, surface and ground water and killing our rivers and ponds. According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), 63% of urban sewage flowing into rivers is untreated. The CPCB’s website admits that the gap between sewage generated in urban areas (all Class 1 and Class 2 towns) and capacity for treating that is over 78%.
•Besides, the numbers are a bit dodgy. Up to a third of the installed sewage treatment capacity is fully or partly dysfunctional. Even where the plants are working, many are not working at full capacity, because the infrastructure needed to feed the raw sewage into the treatment plant — a network of drains, sewers and pumping stations — is inadequate or incomplete.
•All this, one would have presumed, prodded policymakers and governments into action. Just like the nation is building toilets in mission mode, one would have thought civic administrations would be building drains and sewers and treatment plants with the same zeal.
•One would have presumed wrong. Even though it is arguably one of the major health hazards faced by the people — in cities, in particular — sewage and human waste is simply not on the agenda. Here’s a telling statistic to illustrate my point — of the 99 cities in the ‘Smart Cities’ mission, which are collectively spending ₹2 lakh crore over five years (from 2015), only 2.4% of the money is going to be spent on waste management. Even storm water drainage (which only removes short-term excess water during heavy downpours and doesn’t really add to waste management) gets a higher share of 2.5%!
•Of course, other schemes like the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) also fund such schemes. AMRUT covers a much larger spread — 500 so-called ‘mission cities’ across the country. Of these, only 217 pitched for a sewage treatment plant as an AMRUT project. Of these, in the last four years, only four have been completed, according to a reply filed in the Lok Sabha.
•Even these numbers are misleading. Of the 212 schemes, as many as 189 are accounted for by just Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat. Only six other States have one or more projects under way. The rest have no plans.
Access to water
•This, despite the fact that water is increasingly becoming the biggest challenge faced by most Indian cities today. According to NITI Aayog’s composite water management index report released last year, 75% of households do not have access to drinking water on premises, 70% households lack piped water (potable or otherwise) and as many as 20 cities will effectively use up all available water resources by 2020!
•Sewage and waste need to come centrestage in our policy debates. Elections may be fought on ‘bijli, sadak, paani’ (power, roads, water) but no election is fought over naali (drain). Unless that happens, we run the real risk of eventually either choking or being poisoned by our own waste.
📰 Terror timeline: on FATF advisory to Pakistan
The FATF must impress upon Pakistan the need to take meaningful action
•The statement of the Financial Action Task Force in Paris is another message to Islamabad from the international community of the mounting costs of its decades-old lax policy towards terror groups. Significantly, it came a week after the February 14 Pulwama attack, and the global terror finance watchdog condemned, in no uncertain terms, the suicide bombing of the CRPF convoy that left 40 personnel dead. It issued a 10-point advisory to Pakistan if it wants to be out of the “grey list” of countries posing a “risk to the international system”. Pakistan has been on the grey list since June 2018, and will be required to show compliance or face being “black-listed” by the session in October 2019. A black-list would mean enhanced financial scrutiny of its government, possible sanctions against its central bank, and a downgrade of its financial and credit institutions. This is something Pakistan, already facing an acute debt crisis, can ill-afford. Amongst the FATF’s stern observations of what it called Pakistan’s lack of “understanding” of the terror finance risks posed by groups, such as the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Islamic State, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, was a clear message: Islamabad must visibly demonstrate that it has taken measures to crack down on and shut down the infrastructure and finances of these groups. The first deadline to show results is May 2019, with a review in June. This goes even beyond the Security Council guidelines under its 1267 listing, that oblige Pakistan to ensure that terror entities do not travel out of the country, or have access to funding or weaponry.
•Proof that Pakistan took on board the FATF’s warnings and potential action came even as the plenary was under way. Prime Minister Imran Khan held a meeting of his national security officials, and vowed to double down to tackle terror groups in Pakistan and to put two Hafiz Saeed-led LeT offshoots, the Jamaat ud Dawa and the Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation, on its schedule (1) list of banned organisations. A day later, security forces took over “administrative control” of a madrasa in Bahawalpur believed to be run by the Masood Azhar-led JeM, which was behind the Pulwama attack. But the measures do not go far enough or inspire confidence. Mr. Khan’s own speech in response to India’s demand for action on those responsible for Pulwama was a disappointing mix of denial and opportunism to raise the Kashmir issue. The banning of the JuD and the FIF doesn’t appear to have affected the groups in the slightest, and a day after taking over the Bahawalpur seminary, Pakistan’s Information Minister announced that its links to the JeM were simply “Indian propaganda”. The world community must make it clear to the Pakistan government the possible international and financial repercussions of ignoring the FATF’s timeline.
📰 Safety nets: on banning unregulated deposit schemes
New rules on unregulated deposit schemes need to be backed up with proper checks
•The savings of low-income Indian households have traditionally remained unprotected by the government when compared to those of the more affluent economic groups. But that may be about to change now. President Ram Nath Kovind on Thursday promulgated the Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Ordinance, which bars all deposit schemes in the country that are not officially registered with the government from either seeking or accepting deposits from customers. The ordinance will help in the creation of a central repository of all deposit schemes under operation, thus making it easier for the Centre to regulate their activities and prevent fraud from being committed against ordinary people. The ordinance allows for compensation to be offered to victims through the liquidation of the assets of those offering illegal deposit schemes. Popular deposit schemes such as chit funds and gold schemes, which as part of the huge shadow banking system usually do not come under the purview of government regulators, have served as important instruments of saving for people in the unorganised sector. But these unregulated schemes have also been misused by some miscreants to swindle the money of depositors with the promise of unbelievably high returns in a short period of time. The Saradha chit fund scam in West Bengal is just one example of such a heinous financial crime against depositors. The Centre’s latest attempt to curb unregulated deposit schemes through an ordinance reflects a timely recognition of the need for greater legal protection to be offered for those depositors with inadequate financial literacy.
•While the intent of the ordinance, which is to protect small depositors, is indeed commendable, the benefits that depositors will eventually derive from the new legislation will depend largely on its proper implementation. For one, policymakers will have to make sure that the bureaucrats responsible for the on-ground implementation of the ordinance are keen on protecting the savings of low-income households. There must also be checks against persons in power misusing the new rules to derecognise genuine deposit schemes that offer useful financial services to customers in the unorganised sector. In fact, in the past there have been several cases of politicians acting in cahoots with the operators of fraudulent deposit schemes to fleece depositors of their hard-earned money. Another potential risk involved when the government, as in this case, takes it upon itself to guarantee the legitimacy of various deposit schemes is that it dissuades depositors from conducting the necessary due diligence before choosing to deposit their money. The passing of tough laws may thus be the easiest of battles in the larger war against illicit deposit schemes.
📰 Supreme Court order on eviction consistent with its stand on forest rights
Three orders passed by the Supreme Court in 2016, 2018 and 2019 do not question the three-tiered verification process which forest rights claims undergo under the 2006 Forest Rights Act.
•The February 13, 2019 order of the Supreme Court to several States to evict lakhs of claimants finally rejected under the Forest Rights Act (FRA) is an outcome of the consistent stand taken by the top court in the case since 2016 that encroachers should be evicted from forest land after due process.
•On January 29, 2016, a three-judge Bench of Justices J. Chelameswar (now retired), A.M. Sapre and Amitava Roy (retired) held that “if the claim is found to be not tenable by the competent authority, the result would be that the claimant is not entitled for the grant of any patta or any other right under the Act, but such a claimant is also either required to be evicted from that parcel of land or some other action is to be taken in accordance with law.”
•Two years later, on March 7 last year, an apex court Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur, Kurian Joseph (both retired) and Deepak Gupta again sought information from the States concerned about the “action taken against those claimants whose claims have been rejected” and “the status of eviction of those claimants whose claims have been rejected and the total area from which they have been evicted,” among other directions.
•The February 13, 2019 order was a follow-up of these two orders passed in January 2016 and March 2018. All three orders are based on a writ petition jointly filed by NGOs Wildlife First, Nature Conservation Society and Tiger Research and Conservation Trust in 2008.
•The three orders — 2016, 2018 and 2019 — passed by the Supreme Court do not question the three-tiered verification process which forest rights claims undergo under the 2006 Act.
•The process of verification of the claims of forest-dwelling Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFD) is initiated by none other than the local gram sabha. The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Rules of 2007 mandates that the gram sabha coram should have adequate representation from Scheduled Tribes, primitive tribal groups and pre-agricultural communities.
•An appeal would lie with the sub-divisional level committee against the gram sabha’s decision on claims. This committee is formed by the State government. A second appeal can be filed with the district level committee, whose decision over the claims of forest rights would be “final and binding.”
•It is these “finally rejected” claims that the Supreme Court is bothered about. The court has not interfered with claimants whose titles have proven to be genuine as per the three-tiered verification process under the 2006 Act.
•In fact, statistics available on the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA), which is the nodal agency under the 2006 Act, show that lakhs of titles were distributed to genuine claimants even as several lakh claims were rejected across 20 States.
•The MoTA’s data up to November 2018 shows that 42,24,951 claims from individuals and communities were received till November 30 last year. Of this, 18,94,225 titles were distributed while 19,39,231 claims were rejected. The ministry data, collated from inputs supplied by the States, show that titles were distributed to 44.83% of the number of claims received.
•Reports have criticised the Centre for remaining a mute spectator on February 13. In fact, the 2016 order records the stand taken by the Centre, represented by then Additional Solicitor General P.S. Narasimha, in the case.
•Mr. Narasimha had made it clear to the Supreme Court on January 29, 2016 that it was entirely up to the State governments and its authorities to legally proceed against those who were unauthorisedly in possession of forest land within their respective jurisdictions.
📰 GST on under-construction flats, affordable housing slashed by 7%
Tax rates on under-construction housing properties slashed to 5% from 12%; affordable housing tax cut to 1% from 8%.
•In a big relief to home buyers, the GST Council on February 24 slashed tax rates on under-construction housing properties to 5% without input tax credit, from the existing 12%, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said. The Council also cut GST rates on affordable housing to 1% from the current 8% and expanded the scope of affordable housing to those costing up to ₹45 lakh and measuring 60 sq. metre in metros and 90 sq. metre in non-metro cities.
•The new tax rates will come into effect from April 1, 2019.
•Currently, the GST is levied at 12% on payments made for under-construction properties or ready-to-move-in flats where completion certificate has not been issued at the time of sale.
•However, builders will not be able to claim input tax credit (ITC) under the new GST rates.
•“This (GST reduction) decision will certainly give boost to construction sector,” Mr. Jaitley told reporters.
•However, Goods and Services Tax (GST) is not levied on real estate properties for which completion certificate has been issued at the time of sale.
•With regard to lotteries, the GST Council, however, deferred its decision with Mr. Jaitley saying that the Group of Ministers (GoM) will meet again to discuss the proposal. Currently, state-run lotteries attract 12% GST, while state-authorised ones attract 28%.
📰 National action plan for free treatment of hepatitis patients launched
Envisages model treatment centres in all States in the first year
•Patients infected with hepatitis B and C virus, will soon be able to avail free treatment. Eight model treatment centres in Maharashtra, including the Sion Hospital, Mumbai, will roll out free treatment for hepatitis C from March while that for hepatitis B will be rolled out from July.
•Viral hepatitis is a global public health problem that kills nearly 2.72 lakh people annually. It is an inflammatory condition of the liver caused by five known hepatitis viruses — A, B,C,D and E. Of these, B and C are known to cause 96% mortality. Vikas Sheel, joint secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, said on Sunday at the launch of the national action plan, that operational guidelines for hepatitis C were formed last year. “We have now released the guidelines for hepatitis B,” he said adding that the comprehensive action plan will focus on curbing mother-to-child transmission by improving the coverage of hepatitis B injection given at birth. While hepatitis B requires life-long treatment which costs around ₹2,500 per month, hepatitis C requires a 84-day long course costing nearly ₹40,000. “The government has however, managed to procure this course for around ₹2,200 which is a big development,” said Dr. Aakash Shukla, head of gastroenterology department, Sion Hospital.
•Hepatitis B and C are transmitted by unsafe injection practices, infected blood and blood products, sexual transmission and from mother to child. The infections can progress to cirrhosis and liver cancers.
•According to the action plan, one model hepatitis treatment centre will be established in each State in a government institution in the first year. While the number of model centres will be increased gradually, by the end of the second year, efforts will be made to establish one such centre at district level. Setting up a national reference laboratory and State-level reference laboratories is also under planning.
•Launching the action plan to tackle hepatitis B, actor Amitabh Bachchan said on Sunday he will do everything required to spread awareness and combat the disease. Infected with hepatitis B, Mr. Bachchan has been living with only 25% functional liver. “We must pay a lot of attention on detection,” said Mr. Bachchan adding that he is particularly concerned about the discrimination against women due to the infection. “I have heard stories about married women being thrown out of their houses. It is not acceptable,” he said.
•Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Ashwini Kumar Chaoubey and State health minister Eknath Shinde were also present at the launch.
📰 A women-owned dairy in Andhra Pradesh eyes the big league
With a strength of over 83,000, it procures 3.5 lakh litres of milk a day
•Before Shreeja entered her life, middle-aged Gangamma of Palamaner mandal in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district had to be content with the daily drudgery of maintaining her barn and selling the milk from her cows to a private supplier. And that came with the attendant problems of first realising payments from the buyer, and once the money was received, risk having the cash commandeered by a dominant male member of the family — father, husband, son or father-in-law.
•But once Gangamma joined the dairy cooperative, the Tirupati-based Shreeja Mahila Milk Producer Company, life changed unimaginably for the better. Along with an army of more than 83,000 women, she is now a proud co-owner of a dairy that not only procures 3.5 lakh litres of milk every day but has become a ‘game-changer’ in the milk-rich Chittoor district.
•Shreeja, arguably the world’s largest dairy that is exclusively owned by women, was established under the emerging concept of a ‘producer company’ in September 2014. Backed by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), Shreeja is considered a miniature of Amul — every supplier here becomes a shareholder, or conversely, milk is procured only from shareholders. As a result, the shareholder base has spread across the State’s three southern districts of Chittoor, Anantapuram and Nellore besides the bordering areas in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. The cooperative principles of democratic governance and autonomy are also strictly adhered to. Women are not just shareholders, but also handle key positions on the board, as 11 of them are always on the 15-member governing board on a rotation basis, apart from three expert directors and a Chief Executive Officer.
•The advantages in this ‘all women’ dairy are many. “First, it is a giant leap towards ensuring women’s empowerment in the countryside,” Shreeja’s CEO Jayatheertha Chary told The Hindu.
A great recognition
•“Secondly, it recognises the services of the women who are actually involved in milking and cattle management. Thirdly, when suppliers and owners are the same, there is no scope for adulteration as it adversely impacts the yield, the profit and thus their dividend,” he added.
•Prior to the establishment of the cooperative, incomes were largely impacted by arbitrariness in calculation of fat and SNF percentage, besides human errors in weighing. The payments, when released, never reached the women. Shreeja’s entry into the dairy landscape changed everything.
•“Payment is made once in fifteen days, which gets deposited straight into my bank
•account, making our men look to us for petty cash”, Lakshmi Devi, resident of a village in Tirupati rural mandal, said with a wide grin. Transparency in transactions is ensured as data on the procured milk is processed real-time and the amount payable is arrived at right in front of the women.
•Initially, there was substantial resistance from the men, who demanded payment to them in cash. But the company, as part of its avowed policy of ensuring women’s empowerment as well as a commitment to ‘Digital India’ initiative, stuck to bank transfers to the women’s accounts. The men were soon left with little choice but to accept the change. And seeing the success of the initiative, they are now happy with the savings generated for their families.
•The handling of milk was resolved with the use of technology. Milk gathered from the 2,400 pooling points are shifted to a centrally-located Bulk Milk Cooling Unit (BMCU), which can handle up to 5,000 litres. When the volume and distance increases, the procured milk is sent to a bigger Milk Chilling Centre (MCC) having a capacity of 20,000 litres.
•While collection details were earlier sent to the corporate office through pen drives, the data is now received online through GPRS-enabled units.
•Frequent power cuts no longer pose a grave threat to the cooling units, after the company decided to solar-power the entire setup.
Going retail
•Shreeja processes the milk it procures at Balaji Dairy, an NDDB-operated unit in Tirupati. As much as 80% of the milk is sent to New Delhi-based Mother Dairy through railway containers. With a procurement channel firmly in place, the company is now eyeing ‘real visibility’ through retail market presence. Apart from supplying to external agencies, Shreeja is now mulling production of curd, buttermilk, lassi, sweets, yoghurt and flavoured milk as part of a plan for value addition. There are currently four outlets in Chittoor and plans are afoot to open one in Tirupati.
•“Like Amul, we too plan to have a little girl as our brand ambassador, whose icon will feature on our packets”, said Mr. Chary.
•Shreeja also regularly trains women in barn hygiene and cattle management, works in tandem with the local veterinary officer to identify diseases and conducts deworming camps thrice a year. The company has also arranged micro insurance and accident insurance to the women and animal insurance for the cattle — the cows are ear-tagged with a unique code. When eight of the 4,000 animals insured in the last five months died, the owners were not burdened as they received fair compensation on their claims.
•With Shreeja now aiming to get itself into the list of ‘Top 10’ dairy enterprises in India by the year 2025, the company has invested in capacity building. Given that women get more involved when they perceive ownership and as it takes a lot of effort to ensure transformation of a homemaker into a corporate decision maker, counseling sessions are held to aid this ‘supplier-to-owner’ mental transformation.
📰 Issues in upgrade of An-32 aircraft resolved
Ukraine, the manufacturers of Antonov aircraft, has offered the Air Force its new An-132 as An-32 replacement.
•The Indian Air Force (IAF) has reason to cheer as all issues related to the upgrade of An-32 transport aircraft, its workhorse, have been resolved, according to the head of the Antonov State Corporation of Ukraine. At Aero India, Ukraine also offered its new An-132 aircraft to the IAF as a replacement for the An-32 fleet.
Time limit
•“We are optimistic that the pending issues will be closed shortly… Ukraine should supply all spares and material in two years. After that, it is on India how fast the upgrades are finished,” Oleksandr Donets, President of Antonov, said in a conversation with The Hindu on the sidelines of Aero India. Ukraine has begun supplying the upgrade kits to India.
•Mr. Donets said that preliminary discussions have been held with the IAF on further life extension of the An-32 fleet by another five years. Antonov, which is the design organisation, has already checked the feasibility of further five year life extensions by conducting testing and ground vibrations.
•In 2009, India finalised a major upgrade and life extension plan for the entire fleet of 105 An-32 aircraft acquired from Soviet Union under a $400 million deal which would extend their life to 40 years. So far, 46 aircraft have been upgraded, of which 40 were done in Ukraine.
•The rest were to be carried out in India by IAF’s base repair depot in Kanpur. But the programme came to a halt after bitter relations between Moscow and Kiev following the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula. Mr. Donets said that the delay was mainly due to delay in securing spare parts produced in Russia and the gravity of the problem has now “decreased.”
•At the air show, an An-132 prototype, an upgraded variant of the An-32, performed impressive turns, loops, low and high speed manoeuvres. According to Antonov, the aircraft jointly designed by Ukraine and Saudi Arabia can carry a load of upto 9 tonnes and land at high altitudes and on unpaved runways.
•Mr. Donets said the An-132, which is a major improvement in terms of features and performance over the An-32, makes an ideal replacement for the IAF, and offered joint production in India under the ‘Make in India’ initiative.
•IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal B.S. Dhanoa examined the aircraft at the show. During Aero India, Antonov briefed the IAF and also held several meetings for possible partnerships on the An-132 programme.
•Stating that they were looking for international partners for the An-132 programme, Mr. Donets said his team had held discussions with Peru and Myanmar.
•“We have completed contract for the demonstrator. Currently, Saudi Arabia is approaching for a contract for serial production,” he said.
In the pipeline
•An Avro replacement programme of the IAF is currently in the pipeline, for which the Airbus C-295 has been chosen in partnership with Tata group. However, final contract discussions have been delayed.
•Another project for the joint development of a Medium Transport Aircraft (MTA) with Russia was shelved. The An-132 is in the same class as the C-295 and the now shelved MTA.
📰 In a first, IAF commissions aerial surveillance
Hyper spectral imagery to track suspicious movements in dense foliage areas
•The Indian Air Force (IAF) has commissioned the development of an aerial surveillance system for monitoring suspicious moments under dense foliage cover along the international border and some parts within the country. This hyper spectral imagery programme, a first for the country, seeks to locate and identify suspicious movements and is expected to be operational in the next two years.
•What the programme would mean is that the data gathered from aerial sources would be processed within minutes, and researchers would be able to tell security forces on the ground of “unwanted” human presence in the area, their numbers and locations, among other inputs.
•The IAF is spending ₹13 crore for the programme in which human resources from premier research and education institutions across the country are being put together, and has roped in a senior researcher and lead technologist of Indian origin from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as the chief technologist for the programme.
•“For the first time, we will be having multi-sensor data fusion that will help identify an adversary. We have a mandate to change the way we fight the war. The IAF is willing to wait for a couple of years to reap the benefits,” said a senior source in the IAF’s Air Warfare Strategy Cell. “Some agencies in India tried to work on the technology, but have not succeeded,” sources added.
•The IAF, which had tracked the work of Houston-based senior scientist Kumar Krishen’s work for nearly three years, finally roped him in after he quit NASA in September 2018.
•“This is a unique patent application, which will help detect or identify the presence of a human below trees, dense foliage, shrubs or inside a structure, whether it is day or night. It can detect human presence from air even if there a cloud cover, dense fog or snow cover,” explained Dr. Krishen, who spent 43 years in NASA.
Methods in place
•Data/images will be captured through optical and infra red sensors — to be most likely mounted on an unmanned aerial vehicle — and processed through deep learning algorithms.
•Dr. Krishen said that the methods are in place while they were working on handling data and tuning up the algorithm.
📰 DNA forensics a vital tool in cracking wildlife crimes
Analysis by the Zoological Survey of India can identify species and number of individuals killed
•In November 2017, 23-year-old youth from North 24 Parganas in West Bengal killed a wild animal and posted photographs on a social media platform. State Forest Department officials tracked down the man but by then the meat was half cooked and the accused denied all allegations.
•However, a few samples of the cooked meat brought to the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), Kolkata, were enough to nail the accused. A forensic DNA analysis showed that the meat was that of the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus), a Schedule II species protected under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. The analysis helped Forest Department officials press charges against the youth and in further prosecution of the case.
•In another incident, Forest Department officials arrested three persons from Raidighi in the State’s South 24 Parganas near the Sunderban National Park. Forest officials suspected that the accused were carrying deer meat. The sample recovered from the suspects gave no clues about identity of the species.
•In this instance, the ZSI’s DNA analysis showed that the meat was that of cattle. The three accused were subsequently released and cleared of all charges.
•“With investigating agencies facing increased challenges of collecting evidence to ensure convictions in wildlife crimes, DNA forensics are providing a major headway,” said Mukesh Thakur, a scientist with the ZSI’s wildlife forensics team who has contributed to the research.
•Details of case studies, where advanced DNA forensics were used to help prosecute wildlife related crimes, have been documented in a recently published ZSI report, titled “Ascertaining species of origin from confiscated meat using DNA forensics and Wildlife forensics in nullifying the false accusation.”
•“Illegal wildlife crime is not confined to a region or to a country but it is an organized crime where several people are involved — from local hunters to the end buyers. This calls for an urgent need to employ techniques of DNA forensics to improve conviction rate which at present remains very low,” Dr. Thakur told The Hindu.
•Referring to two instances where pangolin scales were seized from Siliguri in August 2017 and April 2018, Dr. Thakur said DNA analysis revealed that these scales were from the Chinese Pangolin whose habitat is restricted to five states in northeast India including parts of north Bengal.
Reference database
•“We have now developed morphology-based identification protocols for distinguishing scales of Indian and Chinese Pangolin with high confidence,” he said. The ZSI is now developing protocols to identify the number of individuals killed in a seizure from the DNA analyses, he added.
•Scientists at the ZSI, however, pointed out that in most cases the samples they receive from investigating agencies in cases of wildlife crime are disfigured and have lost characters of morphological identity, which poses a major challenge.
Wider database
•“We are not just confining our efforts up to species identification but our scientists are also involved in creating a reference database to assign the seizures to the source of origin, identifying sexes from seizures to understand poaching/ hunting pressure on the species which might impact the species demography in coming years,” said Director of ZSI Kailash Chandra.
•According to Dr Chandra, the ZSI is one of four organisations authorised by the Government of India to submit species identification reports from the confiscated materials.
•“We have a dedicated facility for DNA analysis at the ZSI, where we can identify samples at the molecular level using DNA forensics. This new tool is helping in solving a number of wildlife crimes,” he added. The ZSI has also formulated a standard operating procedure in the investigation of wildlife crime.
•The ZSI also organised a workshop for law enforcement agencies titled ‘Wildlife Forensics and Crime Control', where the participants were informed on using new technological tools to combat wildlife crime.
