📰 Coronavirus | PM CARES is not a public authority under RTI Act: PMO
Fund is not public authority, says reply
•The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has refused to disclose details on the creation and operation of the PM CARES Fund, telling a Right to Information applicant that the fund is “not a public authority” under the ambit of the RTI Act, 2005.
•The Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PM CARES) Fund was set to accept donations and provide relief during the COVID-19 pandemic, and other similar emergencies.
•A few days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the launch of the Fund on his Twitter account on March 28, Sri Harsha Kandukuri filed an RTI application on April 1, asking the PMO to provide the Fund’s trust deed and all government orders, notifications and circulars relating to its creation and operation.
•“When we already have the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund (PMNRF), having another fund did not make sense to me. I was curious about the composition and objectives of the Trust. I wanted to read the trust deed,” says Mr. Kandukuri, who is a law student at the Azim Premji University in Bengaluru.
•When he did not receive any response within 30 days, he appealed. Finally, he received a response from the PMO’s information officer dated May 29.
•“PM CARES Fund is not a Public Authority under the ambit of Secon 2(h) of the RTI Act, 2005. However, relevant information in respect of PM CARES Fund may be seen on the Website pmcares.gov.in,” the reply said.
•The relevant section of the Act defines a “public authority” as “any authority or body or institution of self-government established or constituted — (a) by or under the Constitution; (b) by any other law made by Parliament; (c) by any other law made by State Legislature; (d) by notification issued or order made by the appropriate Government — and includes any (i) body owned, controlled or substantially financed; (ii) non Government Organisation substantially financed, directly or indirectly by funds provided by the appropriate Government.”
•Mr. Kandukuri now plans to appeal further. "The name, composition of the trust, control, usage of emblem, government domain name -- everything signifies that it is a public authority," he said, pointing out that the PM is the ex-officio chairman of the Trust, while three cabinet ministers are ex-officio trustees. “The composition of the trust is enough to show that Government exercises substantive control over the trust, making it a public authority,” he said.
•Another RTI request on the issue, filed by activist Vikrant Togad, had also been refused in April, with the PMO citing a Supreme Court observation that “indiscriminate and impractical demands under RTI Act for disclosure of all and sundry information would be counterproductive”.
•There is also ambiguity regarding whether the PMNRF (Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund) is subject to the RTI Act. While the Central Information Commission directed it to disclose information in 2008, a division bench of the Delhi High Court gave a split opinion on the question of whether PMNRF is a public authority under the Act.
The U.S. is by far the health agency’s biggest contributor
•President Donald Trump said he is severing ties with the World Health Organization (WHO) over its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the death toll from the disease spiked again in the U.S. and Brazil.
•The virus, which has killed more than 3,64,000 people and devastated the global economy, is progressing at different speeds across the globe, with Europe continuing to open up from lockdown on Saturday after seeing its number of infections steadily fall.
•Italy’s iconic Leaning Tower of Pisa reopened, while Parisians flocked to parks open for the first time in months. But countries in Latin America are bracing for difficult weeks ahead, especially Brazil, where the death toll shot up by 1,124 on Friday and there was a record number of new infections. The unprecedented challenge of the pandemic has put pressure on the WHO, and Mr. Trump’s decision to end hundreds of millions of dollars in funding comes when the UN agency needs it most.
•Mr. Trump initially suspended funding to the WHO last month, accusing it of not doing enough to curb the early spread of the virus and being too lenient with China, where the virus emerged late last year. On Friday, he made that decision permanent in a major blow for the agency’s finances, as the U.S. is by far its biggest contributor, pumping in $400 million last year. The President told reporters the U.S. would be redirecting WHO funds “to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs”.
‘U.S. turns rogue’
•The move sparked a fierce backlash on Saturday, with German Health Minister Jens Spahn saying the “disappointing” decision was a setback for global health.
•Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet medical journal, said it was “madness and terrifying both at the same time”. “The U.S. government has gone rogue at a time of humanitarian emergency,” he tweeted.
•Nearly six million people have been confirmed to have contracted COVID-19 across the world, and a vaccine remains elusive.
•As the disease spreads across South America, the poor have been hit hard in countries like Brazil, which now has the second highest number of cases in the world after the U.S.
•“In 26 years, I’ve never seen so many people living in fear, so many people going hungry,” said Alcione Albanesi, founder of charity Amigos do Bem, which distributes supplies to communities in the impoverished Sertao region of Brazil’s northeast.
•“Everything has ground to a stop. But hunger doesn’t stop.” Chile also logged another record number of deaths on Friday, pushing its total to almost 1,000.
Positive signs
•In European countries that seem on the other side of their outbreak peak, there has been pressure to lift crippling lockdowns despite experts warning of a possible second wave of infections. Tourism-dependent Greece said it will restart its two main airports for arrivals from 29 countries from June 15. But some European nations hard hit by the virus are not on the list, including France, Spain, Britain and Italy.
•In Austria, hotels and cinemas were allowed to take in customers again on Friday under special guidelines, provided masks are worn. “It is very important that things return to normal, because I am a person who lives alone and is very interested in culture,” film buff Rotraud Turanitz said at Vienna's Admiral Kino cinema.
•Hotels and shopping centres in Ukraine’s capital Kiev also reopened on Saturday. Turkey too has moved ahead with easing its restrictions as mosques opened for the first time in months.
•And Denmark said it would reopen its border to visitors from Germany, Norway and Iceland from June 15, although Britain and the rest of the EU will have to wait a few more months.
📰 Why is the locust surge posing a threat to agriculture in India?
What explains the attack this year? How can the country combat the insect invasion?
•The story so far: India is gearing up for what could be one of its worst locust invasions in decades. Outbreaks of the insect attack have been reported from Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. On Thursday, May 28, the Delhi government issued an advisory to farmers to spray pesticides and keep a possible attack at bay. Last year, Gujarat and Rajasthan had reported infestations. But it could be worse this year because of a chain of climate events, administrative laxity in several countries and the difficult circumstances brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts have warned of huge crop losses if the swarms are not stopped by June when the monsoons will lead to a new season of sowing rice, sugarcane, cotton and other crops.
When was the last big outbreak?
•The last big infestation was in 2010. There were 13 locust plagues between 1964 and 1997. From 1997 to 2010, there were five outbreaks that were controlled. From 2010 to 2018, there were no major swarms or breeding reported, according to the Locust Warning Organization (LWO), in Jodhpur. In 2019, Gujarat and Rajasthan reported a significant surge in locust infestations. Nearly 3.5 lakh hectares of cumin, rapeseed and mustard were damaged and officials had then said that it was the worst attack since 1993. This was partly due to an unusually long monsoon but also because pest-control operations were inadequate; therefore, nascent populations of the insect had not been wiped out.
Who keeps an eye on the locusts?
•As a result of the 1926-1931/1932 locust plague, India, under the British Raj at the time, began research into the desert locust, beginning in 1931. It then led to the establishment, in 1939, of a permanent Locust Warning Organization (LWO), with a station in Karachi (undivided India). Its main job was to keep out an eye for a specific sub-species of the insect, the desert locust, that sprang into the region from the Thar desert. There is a wealth of scientific and newspaper reports that point to locust attacks being a major scourge to the colonial administration and hence the references to it as a “plague” which is how they continue to be recorded to the present. There were serious outbreaks in 1812, 1821, 1843-44, 1863-67, 1869-73, 1876-81, 1889-98, 1900-1907, 1912-1920. A particularly bad season in 1926-1931 prompted the imperial administration to establish the Karachi warning centre and after Independence, India established its own centre at Jodhpur, Rajasthan, as a part of the Directorate of Plant Protection Quarantine and Storage, under the Ministry of Agriculture.
What is the climate link to the infestation?
•A pattern of warming in the Indian Ocean may be a trigger. A phenomenon called the Indian Ocean Dipole, in which the western and eastern parts of the ocean, warm differentially, tend to have an outsized impact in bringing excessive rains to India and West Asia. A ‘positive’ dipole is when the western part is hotter by a degree or more than the eastern. Last year saw one of the strongest positive dipoles in the Indian neighbourhood which brought on a difference of more than two degrees.
•The Indian Ocean Dipole was so strong that it over-rode concerns of a drought in India last June and brought torrential rainfall — the most India has seen in decades. It also lasted nearly a month more than what is normal. This extended rainfall continued in several parts of West Asia, Oman, Yemen and in the Horn of Africa — Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya — so much so that that the dry sand became heavily moisture laden, facilitating the formation of several locust swarms. While this dipole was beginning to take shape by late 2018 — and locust outbreaks were growing in Africa — it increased last year. Due to favourable winds, it helped swarms to fly and breed in traditional grounds in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a specialised agency of the United Nations has been sending alerts on developing swarms. Somalia announced a national state of emergency due to the outbreak in February 2020, while Pakistan declared a national emergency for the second time this year, in April. The unusually mild summer this year, which saw several bouts of rainfall over north and western India from March to May, also helped the insects breed. The normal locust season in India spans June-November and coincides with the kharif season. So far swarms have been recorded in nearly 50,000 hectares in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and if they continue to thrive as the monsoon arrives, it could cause serious agricultural damage.
How are locust invasions dealt with?
•A locust attack has to be dealt with by spraying pest control and plant protection chemicals. According to the FAO’s locust situation bulletin of May 27, adult locusts were forming groups and small swarms in spring breeding areas in Baluchistan, Indus Valley (Pakistan) and southern coast and parts of Sistan-Baluchistan. These infestations are likely to move to the summer breeding areas along India-Pakistan from Cholistan to Tharparkar.
•In India, existing groups of swarms have continued to move east and to the central States of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Much of these movements were associated with the strong westerly winds of Cyclone Amphan. Several successive waves of invasions are likely until July in Rajasthan, with eastward surges across northern India as far as Bihar and Odisha followed by westward movements and a return to Rajasthan on the changing winds associated with the monsoon. These movements will cease as swarms begin to become less mobile. The swarms are less likely to reach Nepal, and Bangladesh and south India, according to experts.
Is adequate action being taken?
•Indian officials, last year and this year too, have blamed Pakistan for not spraying adequate pesticide to stem the nascent population. It has been part of the protocol for many years, for entomologists from India and Pakistan to conduct border meetings and divide pest control responsibilities. While the lack of funds and inadequate monitoring have been a problem for many years, as the FAO has frequently pointed out, the novel coronavirus pandemic this year has caused unusual focus on natural disasters such as cyclones as well as locust attacks.
•While locusts are unlikely to be a threat in urban centres as they do not have much to feed on, the national lockdown has made the availability of pesticide as well as its transportation difficult. With labour also not being available easily due to the lockdown, this could affect spraying operations and, as a result, allow locusts to cause significant damage.
•Experience shows that a locust plague usually follows a one to two year cycle after which there is a lull for eight to nine years. However, strong Indian Ocean Dipoles are expected to become more frequent whetted by an overall trend of warming oceans. This phenomenon could trigger regular locust infestations.
