📰 India and ASEAN to expand trade despite RCEP walkout
Narendra Modi said that there are many similarities between India’s ‘Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative’ and ASEAN’s ‘Outlook on Indo-Pacific’.
•India and ASEAN countries said they would explore ways to increase trade between them despite India’s exit from the 15-nation Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement. The RCEP free trade agreement, which India walked out from a year ago, is expected to be signed on November 15th, between China, Australia, South Korea, Japan, and ten Association of South East Asian (ASEAN) Nations.
•“As far as India is concerned, we did not join RCEP as it does not address the outstanding issues and concerns of India. However, we remain committed to deepening our trade relations with ASEAN,” said MEA Secretary (East) Riva Ganguly Das, briefing journalists about the 17th ASEAN-India virtual summit that Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed on Thursday.
•In November 2019, PM Modi had told the RCEP summit that India was walking out of the Free Trade Agreement after negotiations for more than six years, as it did not address India’s concerns about being flooded by goods from China, trade deficits and need to protect its agricultural and dairy sectors. The remainder of the RCEP countries then continued with the talks minus India, and have decided to sign the FTA, which will encompass about 30% of global trade, on Sunday. However, they are expected to leave in a clause allowing India to rejoin at a later date.
•MEA officials declined to comment on whether the subject of RCEP was discussed during Thursday’s summit. However they said PM Modi had called for an “early review” of the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITGA), and “underlined the importance of diversification and resilience of supply chains for post-COVID economic recovery.” Mr. Modi also announced $1 million contribution to the ASEAN COVID-19 recovery fund.
•ASEAN is India’s fourth largest trading partner with about $86.9 Bn in trade between India and the ten ASEAN nations: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. However, experts have warned that once the FTA is adopted, trade between RCEP nations will assume primacy, which could affect trade ties with other countries including India.
•In his address at the summit, PM Modi also highlighted India’s “Indo-Pacific policy” as an area of convergence for ASEAN and India. According to Ms. Das, all countries stressed the importance of “a rules-based order in the region including through upholding adherence to international law, especially the UNCLOS. The leaders affirmed the importance of maintaining and promoting peace, stability, safety and security in the South China Sea in particular freedom of navigation and overflight,” she said, in reference to China’s naval aggression in the region.
•“There is ample closeness between India's "Indo Pacific Oceans Initiative" and ASEAN's "Outlook on Indo Pacific",” Mr. Modi said, addressing the summit. “Speeding up all types of connectivity initiatives between India and ASEAN - physical, economic, social, digital, financial, maritime - is the top priority for us,” he added.
Report cites measures taken by the country to prevent child pneumonia and diarrhoea deaths.
•India has made significant progress in its vaccination coverage to prevent child pneumonia and diarrhoea deaths, according to the latest annual Pneumonia and Diarrhoea Progress Report released by the International Vaccine Access Centre (IVAC) on Wednesday.
•This year’s report card finds that although overall the world’s health systems are falling short of ensuring that children have access to prevention and treatment services, India has achieved the global target of 90% coverage for three of the five vaccines whose coverage is monitored in the report. These vaccines are Diphtheria, Pertussis and Tetanus (DPT) vaccine, Measles-containing-vaccine first dose, Haemophilus influenzae type B, pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV), and rotavirus vaccine.
•While India’s coverage of rotavirus vaccine increased by 18 percentage points (35% rotavirus coverage in 2018 expanded to 53% in 2019), coverage against pneumococcal pneumonia increased by 9 percentage points (6% PCV coverage in 2018 expanded to 15% in 2019).
100-day agenda
•In 2019, India completed the “100-day agenda” — an unprecedented national scale-up of rotavirus vaccine. This landmark vaccine expansion will help protect 26 million children born each year against life-threatening cases of rotavirus diarrhoea, stated the report.
•The report tracked progress by analysing 10 indicators from the latest available data on how countries are delivering key interventions — including breastfeeding, immunisation, care-seeking and antibiotics, oral rehydration solution (ORS), and zinc supplementation — shown to prevent pneumonia and diarrhoea deaths. Of the 15 focus countries included in the report, India is one of just four countries that exceeded targets for exclusive breastfeeding.
•However, nearly every country included in the report lagged in access to treatments against pneumonia and diarrhoea. India failed to reach all four targets for treatment, the report stated, adding that the treatment for diarrhoea had the lowest coverage, with only 51% of children receiving ORS and 20% getting zinc. “Although there was progress in India in 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic threatens the hard-won gains because of disruptions caused in routine health services like immunisation and access to medical oxygen, the report stated.
📰 Coronavirus | COVISHIELD completes enrolment of Phase-3 clinical trials under partnership of ICMR and Serum Institute of India
The ICMR funded the clinical trial site fees while the SII provided the other expenses for the vaccine, said a release.
•The Serum Institute of India (SII) and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Thursday announced the completion of enrolment of Phase-3 clinical trials for COVISHIELD in India.
•“The ICMR and the SII have further collaborated for clinical development of COVOVAX (Novavax) developed by Novavax, USA, and upscaled by the SII,” noted a release issued by the ICMR.
•It added that the ICMR had funded the clinical trial site fees while SII had funded other expenses for COVISHIELD.
•At present, the SII and the ICMR are conducting Phase-2 and 3 clinical trials of COVISHIELD at 15 different centres, across the country.
•It has completed the enrolment of all 1,600 participants on October 31, 2020.
•COVISHIELD has been developed at the SII Pune laboratory with a master seed from Oxford University/Astra Zeneca. The vaccine made in U.K. is currently being tested in large efficacy trials in U.K., Brazil, South Africa and the U.S.
‘Realistic solution’
•“The promising results of the trials so far give confidence that COVISHIELD could be a realistic solution to the deadly pandemic. COVISHIELD is by far the most advanced vaccine in human testing in India. Based on the Phase 2/3 trial results, the SII with the help of the ICMR will pursue the early availability of this product for India. The SII has already manufactured 40 million doses of the vaccine, under the at-risk manufacturing and stockpiling license from the DCGI,” said the release.
•The ICMR added that the U.S.-based Novavax has initiated its late phase trials in South Africa and U.K. and will soon commence the same in the U.S. “The SII has received the bulk vaccine and Matrix-M adjuvant from Novavax and will soon fill and finish them in vials. This vaccine formulated at SII (COVOVAX) will be tested in a Phase-3 trial in India and an application for the same to regulatory authorities will be made soon by the ICMR and the SII,” noted the release.
•Commenting on the association, Adar Poonawalla, CEO of Serum Institute of India, said, “ICMR has played a huge role in coming forward and strengthening India’s fight against COVID-19. The collaboration will further aid us in putting India at the forefront of developing an immunogenic and efficacious vaccine.”
•Balram Bhargava, Director General of the ICMR, said, “At present, India plays a prominent role in vaccine development and manufacturing globally.”
•He added that the partnership would see the scientists of both the entities facilitate the advancement of regulatory approvals for COVISHIELD and COVOVAX while ensuring strict adherence to all the requisite scientific, ethical and regulatory standards.
📰 China begins work on railway up to Arunachal border
•China has begun work on a strategically significant railway line - its second major rail link to Tibet - that will link Sichuan province with Nyingchi, which lies near the border with India’s Arunachal Pradesh.
•Underlining the special importance that the Chinese government has placed on the project, President Xi Jinping on Sunday officially “gave the instruction” to being work on the project and called it “a major step in safeguarding national unity and a significant move in promoting economic and social development of the western region.”
•The importance of the project, Chinese experts said, is two-fold. Like the Qinghai-Tibet railway line, which in 2006 connected Lhasa to the hinterland, this will be the second such route linking the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) to the hinterland.
•Secondly, it will run right up to Nyingchi near the border with India, which it will link to both Lhasa and Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan. The entire line will run from Chengdu to Lhasa, connecting the two capitals of TAR and Sichuan and cutting the journey from 48 hours to 13 hours.
•Zhu Weiqun, a senior Party official formerly in charge of Tibet policy who earlier headed the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, or upper house, was quoted as saying by state media the railway will help "transport advanced equipment and technologies from the rest of China to Tibet and bring local products out”.
•"If a scenario of a crisis happens at the border, the railway can act as a 'fast track' for the delivery of strategic materials,” he said.
•Xiong Kunxin, an academic at the Tibet University in Lhasa, told the Global Times the railway "is also of great significance in safeguarding national unity and consolidating border stability”. “As the railway runs near China's southwest border areas, it will largely improve the efficiency and convenience of military personnel and material transportation and logical supplies,” he said.
•The first segment of the line within Sichuan province, from Chengdu to Yaan, was completed in December 2018. Work on the 1,011 km-section from Yaan to Nyingchi, which was formally launched this week, and will be finished in 2030. Mr. Xi said " the difficulty involved in the construction is rarely seen elsewhere, due to the complex geological and climatic conditions and fragile ecological environment along the railway”.
•The 435 km section from Nyingchi-Lhasa segment has been under construction since 2015, and will be finished by the end of next year. State media reported as much as 75 per cent of this section consists of 120 bridges and 47 tunnels, with a designated speed of 160 km/h. This includes a 525 metre-long bridge across the Yarlung Zangbo river, as the Brahmaputra is called in Tibet, which has been built at a height of 3,350 metres. The official Xinhua news agency said this makes it the world's highest concrete-filled steel tube arch railway bridge.
📰 Centre rolls out ₹1.19 lakh-crore stimulus package
Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan 3.0 includes scheme to incentivise new recruitment.
•Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday announced a fresh set of relief and stimulus measures for the economy worth ₹1.19 lakh crore, including a scheme to boost re-employment chances of formal sector employees who lost their jobs amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
•The measures, announced a day after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said the country had entered into a technical recession in the first half of 2020-21, include a ₹65,000 crore additional outlay for providing fertiliser subsidies to farmers.
•Ms. Sitharaman asserted that the economy’s rebound as per recent indicators is not just driven by pent-up demand but reflects strong economic growth.
•“The RBI's latest monthly report predicts a strong return to proper growth for the economy, and there could be strong growth in the third quarter itself that could bring us to positive terrain. The expectation earlier was that growth would be seen in fourth quarter, but the RBI feels it could happen as early as Q3,” the Minister said, adding that even ratings agency Moody’s Investor Service had revised its GDP projections for India upwards.
•“Even these assessments by agencies indicate that a correction is happening in the positive direction,” she said, before unveiling 12 measures that she said may be referred to as Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan 3.0.
•The measures included the production-linked incentive scheme for 10 sectors with proposed expenditure of ₹1.46 lakh crore over five years, announced on Wednesday. The other measures add up to a proposed outgo of ₹1,19,100 crore. Experts pegged the fiscal cost of Thursday's announcement at about 1.2% of GDP, if the PLI scheme was included.
•However, the Minister said, “If you take all the packages announced so far, and the RBI measures announced so far, a total of ₹29,87,641 crore has been given so far as stimulus. A total of 15% of GDP. Just the Central government on its own has provided 9% of GDP as stimulus.”
•Ms. Sitharaman allocated ₹900 crore for research and development towards the COVID-19 vaccine and said the government was ready to provide for the actual cost of the vaccine and the logistics for its distribution. “Whatever is required for that (the vaccine cost and distribution logistics), as and when it is required, will be provided,” she said.
MGNREGA boost
•To spur rural employment, an additional ₹10,000 crore has been provided for spending through the MGNREGS and PM’s rural roads scheme. Effectively, this takes the total allocations for MGNREGA in the year close to ₹1.1 lakh crore, with Ms. Sitharaman stating that ₹73,504 crore had already been spent to generate 251 crore person days of employment.
•To boost formal sector employment, a new Atmanirbhar Rozgar Yojana has been launched, under which the government will bear the entire employees’ provident fund (EPF) contributions for two years of all new employees hired between October 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021, in firms with less than 1,000 employees.
•The definition of ‘new employee’ has been kept flexible to include anyone who was part of the EPF net earlier, but had lost their job between March 1 and September 30, 2020. This may help improve such workers’ re-employment prospects.
•As per the Finance Ministry, this benefit will apply to all such 'new employees' earning monthly wages less than ₹15,000. For firms with more than 1,000 employees, the Centre will bear half of the EPF contributions (24% of wages), while for smaller firms, it will bear the entire EPF contribution.
•To be eligible for the scheme, firms registered with EPFO having more than 50 employees must hire at least five new workers, while those with less than 50 employees must hire a minimum of two workers.
•“This benefit will get credited upfront in Aadhaar-seeded EPF accounts of eligible new employees. This will cover nearly 99.1% of all establishments and an estimated 65% of all those employed under the formal sector will be covered by this benefit,” the Minister said.
•To boost urban housing and create jobs, an additional allocation of ₹18,000 crore has been made for the PM Awaas Yojana over and above the ₹8,000 crore allotted in the Budget. Ms. Sitharaman said as many as 78 lakh additional jobs are expected to be generated from this, apart from boosting steel and cement demand significantly.
Tax sops for home buyers
•“We are providing income tax relief for developers and home buyers as there is quite a lot of inventory in the real estate sector. At the moment, on the differential between the circle rate and the agreement value — you get 10% relief. We have decided to increase the differential from 10% to 20% till June 30, 2021 for only primary sales of residential units of value upto ₹2 crore,” the Minister said.
•“We expect a lot of clearance of inventory and people will be able to pay less as the differential gap will be reduced. This will help the middle class which wants to buy when the housing sector is sitting on inventories,” she said, adding that amendments will be made to section 43 CA of the Income Tax Act.
Stressed sectors
•While extending a ₹3 lakh crore emergency credit line guarantee scheme announced earlier for micro, small and medium enterprises till March 31, 2021, the Finance Minister also announced a credit guarantee plan for stressed sectors as well as healthcare.
•“Entities in 26 stressed sectors identified by the K.V. Kamath Committee, plus health care sector with credit outstanding of above ₹50 crore and up to ₹500 crore as on February 29, 2020, would now be able to avail 20% additional credit for a period of five years, with a moratorium of one year on principal repayment,” Ms. Sitharaman said.
•As per the Kamath committee, the stressed sectors include auto components, construction, gems and jewellery, hotel and restaurants, iron and steel, real estate and textiles.
•Soumya Kanti Ghosh, group chief economic adviser, State Bank of India said the scheme could help as many as 40,000 firms but if the overall amount under the scheme stays at ₹3 lakh crore, that could be a constraining factor.So far, ₹2.05 lakh crore of liquidity has already been sanctioned under the scheme.
•Separately, to free up working capital for contractors bidding for public projects, the Centre has decided to reduce the performance security payable on individual contracts to 3% from the prevailing 5% to 10% of project value.
•The earnest money deposit requirement to bid for tenders is also being replaced by a bid security declaration for a period of one year, with the Minister expressing hope this will give them more room to bid for building infrastructure projects.
📰 Media regulation that is quite over the top
Bringing digital media under the I&B Ministry nips in the bud the promise of combative journalism
•The government’s move bringing online news and current affairs portals along with “films and audio-visual programmes made available by online content providers” under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is as brazen as it is wily.
•Brazen, because this is an attack on the free press, targeted at a section that has been bold and forthright in speaking truth to power.
•Brazen, because this comes from a party, many of whose leaders’ claim to fame is that they were in the vanguard of the JP movement and fought the attack on the press during the Emergency under Indira Gandhi. And now they themselves set out to make the media institutionally captive.
•Wily, because, it is clubbing the only sector of the media which has pre-censorship, namely films (through the Central Board of Film Certification), with the news media which has so far, at least officially, not been subject to pre-censorship, although media practitioners know the grave post-publication consequences of airing news or views critical or adversarial to the government of the day.
Making the press unfree
•It neatly hijacks matters before the Supreme Court of India relating to freedom of the press and freedom of expression to arm the executive with control over the free press, thereby essentially making it unfree.
•The instant case is that relating to Sudarshan News, in which hate speech is being disingenuously sought to be passed off as freedom of the press. The government’s initial response was to ask the Court to look at regulating digital media rather than the mainstream TV channels. So the case itself has become tricky — if a TV channel indulging in hate speech is to be brought to book, it must be at the cost of regulating the media. And regulation — other than self-regulation — is nothing but censorship. In fact the excuse given by the government for this annexation of the digital media by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is that the self-regulation proposals given by the sector (the mandate and representativeness of the organisations in this sector which made these proposals are questionable in the first place) were not satisfactory.
•It, similarly, also hijacks another public interest litigation in the Supreme Court relating to content on “Over The Top” (OTT) platforms not being subject to regulation or official oversight to bring that sector too under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
Court as alibi
•In other words, what we are seeing is these cases before the judiciary being made an excuse, and the august institution itself being made an unwitting alibi, to erode freedom of the press and freedom of expression, which are a fundamental right and a basic feature of the Constitution that no executive or legislature can tamper with or nullify.
•It seeks to divide and rule the press by creating an artificial distinction between the new-age digital media (the stand-alone news portals which are already struggling to stay afloat) — which is the media of the future, the media of the millennial generation — and the older print and TV news media.
•The explanation that the print media have the oversight of the Press Council of India and the TV media of the News Broadcasters Association (NBA), and therefore the digital media needed a regulatory framework — no less than that of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting — is both lame and laughable. Because, first of all, there is no comparison between the Press Council of India and the NBA as professional bodies on the one hand and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on the other. We know, for instance, how independent and free news on Doordarshan and All India Radio is even under the so-called autonomous corporation, Prasar Bharati.
Fate of digital media
•The fate of the digital media under the control of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting leaves little scope for hope, and dooms the sector for both the media practitioner and the media entrepreneur and for the startups that have been the new vibrant face of contemporary journalism. The move is tantamount to nipping in the bud a promise of combative journalism. It makes our democracy the poorer for it. This move must be seen for what it is — politically and morally decrepit — and must be legally challenged as unconstitutional and autocratic. One cannot resist wondering whether, at this rate, the government will next bring the social media under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Where does one stop stopping free speech?
