📰 South Tamil Nadu, Kerala coasts on pre-cyclone watch
Depression in the bay expected to intensify; heavy rainfall warning across districts
•Another potential cyclonic storm, brewing over southeast Bay of Bengal may strike the Sri Lanka coast first and then emerge into the Comorin area on December 3, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said and declared a pre-cyclone watch for the south Tamil Nadu and south Kerala coasts.
•A depression which lay east-southeast off Kanyakumari and Trincomalee on Monday noon was expected to concentrate into a deep depression early on Tuesday and transform into a cyclonic storm in the subsequent 24 hours. The cyclonic storm expected to cross the Sri Lankan coast during Wednesday evening/night. By Thursday morning, it is expected to emerge into the Kanyakumari region, the IMD said.
•Heavy to very heavy rainfall with isolated extremely heavy falls is likely in Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi, Tenkasi, Ramanathapuram and Sivagangai districts of Tamil Nadu (above 24 cm); and Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta and Alappuzha districts of Kerala on Wednesday and Thursday.
•These regions can also expect isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall through Tuesday to Friday, the IMD said.
•Should the system develops into a cyclonic storm, it may be named Burevi, a name suggested by Maldives.
•Officials noted that heavy rains in one or two places may start over Tamil Nadu’s delta and southern districts such as Thanjavur, Sivagangai, Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari on Tuesday and continue for two days. Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts may receive isolated heavy rains on Wednesday.
Alert for Kerala
•Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta and Alappuzha districts have been put on red alert for Thursday given the likelihood of extremely heavy rainfall. Kottayam, Ernakulam and Idukki are on orange alert on the same day for isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall.
•Yellow alerts for isolated heavy rainfall are in place for Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta and Idukki are on orange alert and Alappuzha, Ernakulam and Kottayam on yellow alert.
•Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta and Alappuzha are on orange alert on Friday and Kottayam, Ernakulam and Idukki on yellow alert.
•Orange alerts have been issued for the Lakshadweep islands on Thursday and Friday.
North TN forecast
•Deputy Director General of Meteorology, Chennai, S. Balachandran said, “The weather disturbance has to cross Sri Lankan land mass before reaching closer to TN coast. We are monitoring the system and tracking whether it will emerge through the Gulf of Mannar or directly reach the Comorin region. Parts of north TN and Chennai too have prospects of rainfall.”
Strong winds
•Squally winds with speeds reaching 55-65 kmph gusting to 75 kmph are expected over Gulf of Mannar, along and off south Tamil Nadu and Kerala coasts, Lakshadweep, Maldives and adjoining southeast Arabian Sea for two days from Thursday. The IMD has advised total suspension of fishing activities in these regions till Friday.
First connection likely in 2021: report
•India, which has the highest average monthly mobile data traffic per smartphone, is expected to surpass 350 million 5G subscriptions by 2026, accounting for 27% of all mobile subscriptions in the country, according to a report by Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson.
•As per the ‘The Ericsson Mobility Report 2020,’ four out of every ten mobile subscriptions in 2026 will be 5G globally with 5G subscriptions forecast to reach 3.5 billion. “In the India region, LTE (long-term evolution technology) subscriptions are forecast to increase from 710 million in 2020 to 820 million in 2026” by which time 3G will be phased out. LTE remains the dominant technology in 2020, accounting for 63%,” the report said, while pointing out that it would continue to be dominant, representing 63% of mobile subscriptions in 2026, with 3G being phased out by that time.
•Based on the reported timeline for spectrum auction for 5G services, India could have its first 5G connection in 2021, according to Nitin Bansal, head of network solutions for the market area south east Asia, oceania and India, Ericsson.
•Mobile broadband technologies accounted for 67% of mobile subscriptions in 2020, and this figure is predicted to reach 91% by 2026, when the total number of mobile broadband subscriptions is set to reach close to 1.2 billion, it said.
•The report added that in India, the reliance of people on mobile networks to stay connected as well as work from home during the pandemic has resulted in average traffic per smartphone user rising from 13.5 GB a month in 2019 to 15.7 GB in 2020, the highest globally.
•The average traffic per smartphone is expected to further increase to about 37GB per month in 2026, it added.
•“Low prices for mobile broadband services, affordable smartphones and increased time spent by people online all contribute to monthly usage growth in India,” said Patrik Cerwall, head of strategic marketing insights and editor of Ericsson Mobility Report.
📰 Winter worries: On Home Ministry guidelines to check spread of COVID-19
Targeted containment of COVID-19 can work, but there is no room for complacency
•New Home Ministry guidelines to check further spread of COVID-19 during the winter months starting with December reflect the government’s concern that the gradually reviving economic activity should remain unaffected by ongoing containment measures. The Centre has mandated that States declare containment zones online, identifying them with micro targeting to minimise the impact. It has also prohibited any lockdowns at State and city levels without prior consultation with the Ministry. Such advice might appear redundant, coming as it does after a long unlock phase that permitted the relaxation of restrictions on almost all public activities, barring regular flights and trains, and the onus having shifted to the citizen to avoid getting infected. Several States with a perceived decline in new infections have opened up even more; in Tamil Nadu, for instance, final year in-person college classes and medical courses except for fresh entrants are set to reopen on December 7. This is a time to reiterate proven safety norms, considering that India has about 4.48 lakh active cases out of a total of 94.31 lakh cases recorded thus far, and where almost three-fourths of new infections are concentrated in eight States and Union Territories including Delhi. Encouraging results from vaccine trials and the likelihood of early emergency use authorisation have weakened voluntary caution, and citizens are yielding to pandemic fatigue. Health authorities must reinforce the message that low-cost interventions such as masks, good ventilation and distancing norms cannot be abandoned.
•Evidence from the lockdown in India shows that the reproductive number for COVID-19, representing the number of fresh infections caused by an individual, was indeed reduced by the severe curbs, although the outcome varied by location. At the end of April, as the lockdown rigour eased, India had over 30,000 cases and 1,153 deaths in all. But seven months later, there were 39,806 infections and 433 deaths in a single day, November 29, underscoring the continuing challenge. The prime task before health administrators is to convince the average citizen that there is much to be gained through inexpensive lifestyle modification. A study of 131 countries published in The Lancet estimated the benefits of restricting group gatherings to 10 people, and how reducing physical attendance at workplaces could bring down the reproductive number by 38% in one month. Universal masking, with 95% compliance, is projected to reduce deaths dramatically, in another University of Washington study. Evidently, the entire economy stands to benefit from such painless interventions, while sparing doctors and frontline health workers of deadly risk. The Central government has rightly prioritised targeted containment, but it should standardise testing protocols across States, and not dilute the message of safe behaviour by labouring over the point of recoveries and low per-million fatalities.
📰 Moving forward in base areas
There are many advantages in deploying additional security forces in Chhattisgarh to tackle the Maoists
•The Union government is in the process of deploying five more battalions of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) to Chhattisgarh to scale up anti-Maoist operations, particularly in the south Bastar region.
•More than 45 Central Armed Police Force battalions are already deployed in Chhattisgarh, where 14 districts are Maoist affected. Of them, eight are severely affected. Most of the 22 State armed battalions are also deployed in these districts. In addition, the CRPF’s specially trained ‘Cobra’ units and the State’s Special Task Force and District Reserve Guards are also engaged in operations in the forward areas. Though the proposed deployment is in line with the ‘National Policy and Action Plan’ of the Central government on Left Wing Extremism, its impact may have wider implications on the ground.
•Despite the present deployment, Bastar still has a security vacuum in many pockets, particularly in the south Bastar and Abujhmad areas. These pockets, called base areas by the Maoists, not only provide them occasion to wage ‘mobile war’ against the security forces, but also enable their military formations, including the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army battalion, to move about freely. Though their movement is regularly checked by the security forces, the Maoists still enjoy sufficient control over the tribal populace.
Benefits of more forces
•The newly inducted battalions could have multiple advantages for the State. First, as more area will now be dominated by the security forces, the Maoists’ movement will be restricted to a comparatively smaller area. In case of any attack on the security forces, the Maoists will not be able to retreat unchallenged. Consequently, the intensity of war will be reduced and the ‘mobile war’ will come down to its basics, i.e., the ‘guerrilla war’. Similarly, the Maoists’ battalion, being large in size, will become more vulnerable and in all likelihood, would be cut back over time due to continuous pressure from the security forces. Also, additional deployment and frequent movement of the security forces would improve the intelligence network.
•Second, establishment of new security camps always brings immediate benefits for the nearby villages. New borewells are dug and health services are also extended by the medical staff of security camps. Once these services are initiated by the forces, the district administration scales them up by providing the required funds. The dislocated fair price shops (PDS) are restored to their original locations and villagers are not required to walk long distances to fetch their rations. All other schemes of the governments are also implemented better through these newly established security camps-cum-development centres.
•Third, once the security environment improves, more roads can be laid and mobile towers and electricity poles installed for better transportation, communication and electricity supply. Financial inclusion can be improved and the MNREGA works started to give impetus to economic activities. More schools, primary health centres and anganwadis can be opened up to provide basic amenities to the villagers.
•Fourth, democratic institutions like panchayats may get revived and political activities could increase with the improved security scenario. This may further lead to better grievance redressal in the existing inaccessible areas.
Being alert on tactics
•However, the security forces need to be more alert to thwart any untoward incident while moving in base areas. They need to be more watchful of their tactics knowing well that IEDs and iron spikes have been laid all over by the Maoists. The collateral damage must be reduced to its minimal. The Maoists usually oppose establishment of new security camps and use villagers as their cover. A lot of violence has been witnessed in the past at the behest of the Maoists. Therefore, the villagers must to be taken into confidence and told that the new security camps will act for their welfare as centres of development.
📰 A misguided policy that cuts deep into patient safety
It is impossible for Ayurveda to incorporate surgical techniques while ignoring the other domains of modern medicine
•The basic requirement of medical practice is the safety of the patient. Surgery is a branch of medicine in which poor training can have dramatic and disastrous results. This is the strongest argument against the ill-advised move of the government of India to allow graduates in Ayurveda to practise surgery.
Apprenticeship is key
•Surgery in the present era is an interdisciplinary endeavour. A well-trained anaesthesiologist keeps the patient free of pain. Other specialist doctors address any other illnesses that the patient has before surgery can be safely performed. The well-trained surgeon must have a good knowledge of the structure of the human body in health and disease. This is one branch of medicine where knowledge can only be acquired through apprenticeship — that is, the learner needs to be guided by an expert. It takes many years and much exposure before a graduate in medicine can safely perform surgery. It is an aphorism in modern medicine that a surgeon needs to know not only how to perform surgery, but when. Importantly, the surgeon needs to know when not to perform surgery, a skill commonly called clinical judgement. These skills are difficult to teach and difficult to master.
•Errors in surgery can be devastating. Data from the United States suggests that up to 4,000 surgical errors occur each year despite well-considered controls on who can perform surgery. Efforts to reduce this rate focus on better training. Besides professional codes, legal mechanisms have been developed to ensure safe medical practice.
•In India, the Consumer Protection Act serves as an incentive to modern medical practitioners to provide high quality health care. Even this legal mechanism is not accessible to the poor. It is quite clear that there is no shortcut to safe surgical outcomes. One simply cannot get away from it — safe surgery requires years of training.
•The idea of competence without comprehension should not beguile us into believing that surgery is a suitable subject for its application. Anecdotes of people not educated, but able to perform complex tasks should be understood in the framework of the psychologist Rasmussen’s Skill, Rule and Knowledge-based Error model. Some complex tasks are a set of repetitive steps where the person acquires proficiency merely by practice, for example, using a complex machine without knowing how it works. This is not applicable in surgery where novel situations are often encountered and a good knowledge base is essential to solve problems which may not have been previously encountered.
What constitutes safe surgery
•Modern medicine is an integrated whole in which specialties have developed from the understanding that the knowledge base is so vast that a single human can only ever hope to master a few of the domains required in order to provide the best possible outcomes to patients. Modern medical training consists of a basic degree during which the fundamentals of the functioning of humans in health and disease, and techniques to diagnose illnesses are taught. Increased knowledge in various domains is obtained through post-graduate training. All these domains work together in order to ensure safe surgery. It is impossible for Ayurveda to incorporate surgical techniques while ignoring all the other domains of modern medicine and still perform surgery safely and effectively.
•What is scientific knowledge? How is it to be transmitted? Is there any sound basis for different scientific systems in the modern world? More specifically, can there be fundamentally different explanations of how the human body is structured and functions? These are all important questions and have implications for policy in health care. Important decisions with potential to seriously harm thousands of people should not be casually made without clear answers.
•Safe and effective health care should not become a casualty of a misguided desire to protect indigenous systems. Traditional knowledge in India has become the victim of self-serving apparatchiks who have fossilised it, preventing its development and growth. Human knowledge is a universal resource, ever growing. The way forward is to incorporate traditional medical systems into modern medicine.
Could deepen inequity
•The quality of medical care received in India is highly dependent on personal resources. Surgical facilities manned by graduates of Ayurveda will be patronised only by the very poor who do not have the resources to access modern medical care. This will further entrench the existing grossly unequal access to health care. An epidemic of catastrophic complications, disproportionately affecting the poor can be expected if surgical procedures are performed by the poorly trained.
•There is a shortage of trained medical personnel in rural areas. The only way to address this is to greatly increase the number of government medical colleges. This will take a few years, but it is a safe and effective policy. Safety of patients should not become a victim of misguided policies based on poor understanding of what safe surgery requires.
📰 Recalibrating India-Nepal ties
The relationship has never been free of controversy as both countries have not changed their perspectives of each other
•When Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla arrived in Kathmandu on November 26 and spoke in fluent Nepali to the media, there was some hope that the visit would go beyond the traditional exchange of pleasantries. When he departed, the hope was that his visit would be the beginning of a continued dialogue between the two countries that have had a strained relationship since the imposition of a five-month-long blockade in 2015 in Nepal just as the country was recovering from a devastating earthquake.
•In the past five years, the only glimmer of hope to work on the relationship was the constitution of an Eminent Persons Group. The Group was disbanded after submitting its report, the outcome of which is still not known. Nepal thought that the Eminent Persons Group would be the foundation for reworking the relationship between the two countries, but for India, as a former diplomat put it, it was just one of the hundreds of initiatives or administrative mechanisms. The Foreign Secretary did not touch upon the issue of the Eminent Persons Group in his latest address. His speech was not different from speeches made in the past, and the joint statement from both the governments was a usual nicety.
Unchanging perspectives
•The Nepal-India relationship has never been free of controversy as the perspectives of both sides are yet to change. Many in Nepal continue to equate being anti-India with being nationalistic. Politicians and political parties whip up such sentiment and compete with each other on who can be more extreme, especially before an election. Prime Minister K.P. Oli won the 2017 election partly because he projected himself as someone who stood up to India during the blockade. He again whipped up nationalistic sentiments when he got the Nepal map amended to add new territory. This was a good way to deflect attention from the poor management of the COVID-19 pandemic by his government. His government’s excuse was that after India released its new map in November 2019, Nepal wanted to discuss the map with India but the latter did not provide any time for a discussion.
•India continues to think that by providing largesse to Nepal in the form of aid and development projects, it can win Nepali hearts. But despite pouring billions of rupees into Nepal over decades, it has still not been able to do so. Therefore, it needs to reflect on what it is not doing right. Two issues are important to understand here. First, all aid to Nepal from countries other than India and China go through the Plans of the Government of Nepal. Indian aid is seen in Nepal as a favour bestowed on a constituency it wants to garner support from rather than a contribution to Nepal’s planned development. Second, India competes with China in providing aid outside government budgets. And China picks up projects of visibility and strategic location. Chinese involvement in Nepal has increased since the April 2015 earthquake and Nepal is surely an area of strategic influence in China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
People-to-people ties
•The Foreign Secretary raised the issue of people-to-people exchanges between the countries, a welcome development. In the past two decades, two significant changes have happened in this area. First, Indian workers in Nepal constitute a big part of the workforce and send about $3 billion to India every year. In terms of remittances to India, Nepal ranks eighth. So, the Government of India needs to keep in mind that many households in India are being run with remittances from Nepal. Second, Nepalis have migrated in the past 20 years to more than a hundred countries; India is not the only country that Nepalis rely on for jobs or education. This is a new Nepal comprising young people with global aspirations. Nearly three-fourths of the population of Nepal is under 35 years of age. India needs to engage beyond its current constituency, the minuscule proportion of the population who are above 65. Meanwhile, Nepal needs to plan how it engages with the youth in mainland India for whom Nepal is just like Bangladesh or Myanmar, areas they study about in geography in school but know little about.
•There are some fundamentals that we simply cannot forget: geography will not change, the border will remain open as millions of livelihoods on both sides depend on it, and China is going to be a big global player with varied interests in the neighbourhood. Therefore, the India-Nepal relationship has to be recalibrated. The hope is that the Nepali-speaking Foreign Secretary who has Sikkimese ancestry will be able to rethink the dynamics of the relationship as he reflects on his visit to Nepal.
📰 The perils of deregulated imperfect agrimarkets
The Farm Acts were legislative misadventures, while much more is needed to address the genuine fears of farmers
•The eruption of massive farmers’ protests across India against the Farm Acts has shocked those in the seat of power in Delhi. According to the government, many private markets will be established, middlemen would disappear, farmers would be free to sell to any buyer and farmgate prices would rise. But the protesting farmers do not accept these claims. They believe that farmgate prices would fall with the intensification of a corporate presence in agricultural markets. They also believe that the government, ultimately, wants to phase out the Minimum Support Price (MSP) system.
•Let us look at the major claims and their merits. Due to space constraints, the focus here will only be on the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020 (FPTC Act).
More mandis needed
•An important assumption behind the FPTC Act is that mandis controlled by Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (APMC) are monopsonies in rural areas. This assumption itself is specious. First, official data show that even for paddy and wheat, respectively, only 29% and 44% of the harvest is sold in a mandi, while 49% and 36% is sold to either a local private trader or an input dealer. In other words, de facto, a large proportion of Indian harvest is not directly sold in a mandi.
•Farmers are forced to sell outside the mandis for two reasons. The first is that there are not enough mandis. In 1976, there were 4,145 large markets in India, with the average area served at 775 km2. The National Commission on Agriculture (NCA) had recommended that every Indian farmer should be able to reach a mandi in one hour by a cart. . Thus, the average area served by a mandi was to be reduced to 80 km2. For this, the number of mandis was to increase to at least 41,000. But there were only 6,630 mandis in 2019 with an average area served of 463 km2. Using another set of criteria, a government committee in 2017 had recommended that India should have at least 10,130 mandis. So, by all counts, India needs not less but more mandis.
•The second reason is that most small and marginal farmers, given their small marketable surplus, do not find it economical to bear the transport costs to take their harvests to mandis. Thus, they end up selling their harvest to a village trader even if at a lower price. Even if private markets replace mandis, small and marginal farmers will continue to sell to traders in the village itself. The situation will change only if economies of scale rise substantially at the farm-level.
•Second, de jure too, the freedom to sell outside mandis already exists in many States. Already, 18 States have allowed the establishment of private markets outside the APMC; 19 States have allowed the direct purchase of agricultural produce from farmers; and 13 States have allowed the establishment of farmer’s markets outside the APMC. Despite such legislative changes, no significant private investment has flowed in to establish private markets in these States. Private markets have emerged in some pockets for some crops, but these are by no means widespread.
•The reason for poor private investment in markets is the presence of high transaction costs in produce collection and aggregation. When private players try to take over the role of mandis and the village trader, they incur considerable costs in opening collection centres and for salaries, grading, storage and transport. The more the number of small and marginal farmers are, the higher will these costs be. Corporate retail chains face additional costs in urban sales and storage, as well as the risk of perishability. This is why many retail chains prefer purchasing bulk quantities of fruits and vegetables from mandis rather than directly from farmers.
Transaction costs
•Even if private markets emerge, the size of transaction costs are likely to offset any decline in mandi taxes. As a result, there is no assurance that farmers would receive a higher price in private markets. In the existing private markets too, there is no evidence of farmers receiving higher prices than in the mandis. In fact, if transaction costs exceed mandi taxes, the costs would be transferred to the farmers as a lower price. This, then, would imply a stronger squeeze on the farmer than at present
•Many commentaries treat taxes in mandis as wasteful. This assertion is not fully true. First, much of the mandi taxes are reinvested by APMCs to improve market infrastructure. A fall in mandi taxes would reduce the surplus available with APMCs for such investment.
•Second, in States such as Punjab, the government charges a market committee fee and a rural development fee. The Punjab Mandi Board uses these revenues to construct rural roads, run medical and veterinary dispensaries, supply drinking water, improve sanitation, expand rural electrification and provide relief to farmers during calamities. Such rural investments will also be adversely affected if mandis are weakened.
The fate of MSPs
•Without doubt, MSPs would continue to survive on paper as the government will have to procure to maintain a minimum buffer stock. However, many policy signals point to a strategic design to weaken the MSPs.
•First, input and labour costs are rising sharply in agriculture. This necessitates a regular upward revision of MSPs to keep pace with costs of living. However, MSPs are rising at a far slower rate over the past five to six years than in the past. Second, the government has not yet agreed to fix MSPs at 50% above the C2 cost of production. As a result, farmers continue to suffer a price loss of ₹200 to ₹500 per quintal in many crops. Third, the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) has been recommending to the government that open-ended procurement of food grains should end. These policy stances have set alarm bells ringing among farmers.
•In Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, most crop sales are at the MSP through procurement centres including the mandis. The farmers in these regions legitimately feel that they have been dealt a double whammy. If mandis weaken and private markets with no commitment to MSPs expand, they fear a gradual erosion of their entitlement to a remunerative price. If mandis weaken and private markets do not sufficiently replace them, they fear that the void would be filled by unscrupulous and unregulated traders. As Barbara Harriss-White, a scholar of India’s agricultural markets once observed, “deregulated imperfect markets may become more, not less, imperfect than regulated imperfect markets”.
Steps to be taken
•Discussions between the government and the farmers can be structured using a broad framework based on two focus points.
•First, India needs an increase in the density of mandis, expansion of investment in mandi infrastructure and a spread of the MSP system to more regions and crops. This should happen hand-in-hand with a universalisation of the Public Distribution System as an affordable source of food for the poor.
•Second, we need not just more mandis, but also better mandis. APMCs need internal reform to ease the entry of new players, reduce trader collusion and link them up with national e-trading platforms. The introduction of unified national licences for traders and a single point levy of market fees are also steps in the right direction.
•However, if we go by the Union Finance Minister’s statement in November 2019, the government thinks that the APMC system has “served its purpose” and the States should “reject” and “dismantle” mandis. Such statements betray the real intent of the government, which has not missed the attention of the protesting farmers. Further, the branding of protesters as “anti-national” and “Khalistanis” has only helped to further alienate the farmers from the government. The government’s legislative adventurism with the Farm Bills was misplaced to begin with. . But it is never too late to rethink. Unconditional talks with farmers would be an appropriate starting point.
