📰 As China shows its hand in Nepal’s political crisis, India prefers to watch from the sidelines
Former diplomats say India has rightly chosen to steer clear of public comment.
•Within just seven months, the disposition of Nepal’s top leadership towards New Delhi has undergone a complete turnaround. On the one hand, Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli, who was running a collision course with the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accusing it of territorial hegemony, has considerably softened his tone, and courted high-level visits from India towards the end of 2020.
•On the other, his rival in the unified Nepal Communist Party Pushp Kamal Dahal or Prachanda, who was seen as sympathetic to India’s cause, is now clearly seeking China’s intervention in the current political crisis in Nepal, sparked by Mr. Oli’s dissolution of parliament’s lower house.
•In another turnaround, China, which used to stay aloof from internal politics, has shown its hand in the current crisis, while India, which is often accused of instigating instability in the Himalayan nation, is watching the situation, albeit closely, from the sidelines. Indian Ambassador to Kathmandu Vinay Kwatra travelled to Delhi after a meeting with Prime Minister Oli last week, setting off speculation that he had carried a message from the Nepali PM to the Modi government, explaining his reasons for the “coup”. The Ministry of External Affairs however said that, while it had “noted” the developments, these were “internal matters for Nepal to decide as per its democratic processes,” with only a thinly veiled suggestion that Mr. Oli’s actions should be democratic.
•In contrast, Chinese Ambassador Hou Yanqi has been busy since the dissolution announcement last Sunday, and met with the Prachanda-Madhav Nepal faction as well as President Bidhya Devi Bhandari, after which Beijing dispatched Guo Yezhou, vice-minister of the International Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) to Kathmandu. Mr. Guo had last visited Kathmandu just after the election win of the Left Alliance in 2018 and before the unification of Mr. Oli’s UML (United Marxist Leninist) and Prachanda’s Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), and is believed to know all communist party leaders well. Whether he succeeds in his mission to try and keep the communist party unified, or not, it is clear that Beijing’s top echelons have exposed themselves to accusations of interference in Kathmandu.
•Beijing has also sent top leaders to Kathmandu after visits by R&AW chief Samant Goyal, Army Chief Naravane and Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla, indicating its discomfort with Mr. Oli’s shift towards Delhi. An added international dimension to the tangle this year was Mr. Oli’s decision to go ahead with the United States’ $500 million Millennium Challenge Corporation’s development assistance programme, which Prachanda and other leaders blocked in parliament, claiming it would draw Nepal into the US’s Indo-Pacific policy.
•Former diplomats say India has rightly chosen to steer clear of public comment.
•“Despite a two-thirds mandate for the ruling party, Mr. Oli and Mr. Dahal continued to try tripping each other up, rather than focusing on governance. India, which is usually the whipping boy of their politics is correctly staying out of the picture, while China attempts to involve itself in their politics,” said former Indian Ambassador to Nepal Manjeev Singh Puri.
•Those in Delhi watching developments closely say that the Modi government, that has only recently patched up with the Oli government after the map conflagration in May, is also taking the calculated risk that while Mr. Oli could lose control of the party, he retains the balance of power, and President Bhandari’s acceptance of his decision to dissolve the House and even reshuffle his cabinet as a caretaker PM, as well as the Constitutional bench of the Supreme Court not to immediately stay the decision have been seen as indicators of that. Meanwhile, parliament speaker Agniprasad Sapotka, who had earlier said that under the Constitution, the house cannot be dissolved without all optional governments being considered, has yet to announce whether he will cross Mr. Oli and reconvene the lower house.
•As a result, officials say India will allow the crisis to play itself out further, unlike in 2015, when Nepal’s decision to promulgate the constitution led to bad blood and a blockade at the border. “If we speak, we are accused of interfering; and if we don’t act or make a statement we would be accused of being cut out of the picture in Nepal,” said an official, explaining New Delhi’s cautious stand.
Sri Lanka consumes an estimated 7,000 tonnes of turmeric annually, and nearly 5,000 tonnes were imported from India until COVID-19 struck the country.
•Sri Lanka police on Sunday seized 20,000 kg of turmeric smuggled by sea, reportedly from India, amid a shortage persisting since Sri Lanka banned imports to support local farmers in the pandemic year.
•“The consignment had been loaded to a fishing trawler mid-sea. We suspect it came from India. It was apprehended along the island’s southern coast,” police spokesperson DIG Ajith Rohana told The Hindu.
•The coronavirus pandemic, which hit Sri Lanka in March, has severely impacted its economy, prompting the government to restrict imports and pledge greater support to local farmers. Sri Lanka consumes an estimated 7,000 tonnes of turmeric annually – the ingredient is widely used across different cuisines in the island nation – and nearly 5,000 tonnes were imported from India until COVID-19 struck the country.
•Meanwhile, consumers are still finding it hard to purchase turmeric at reasonable prices in the capital and other districts, and point to a black market where a kg is sold for up to LKR 5,000 (roughly ₹1,940), though the government capped the maximum retail price of turmeric powder at LKR 750 (about ₹291) per kilogram. Agriculture Department officials had earlier indicated that local production may pick up by early 2021, but it remains to be seen how much of the local demand their produce can meet.
•Earlier this year, Colombo-based traders wrote to the government, seeking the release of 1 million kilogram of turmeric, imported from India prior to the pandemic, and stuck at the Colombo Port, to ease the pressure in the local market. The consignment is yet to be cleared for sale in the local wholesale and retail markets, sources said.
📰 Essential dry run
Constant, long-term monitoring of adverse events after vaccination is essential
•In the next couple of weeks, Phase-3 data of two COVID-19 vaccines tested by Indian manufacturers are expected to be submitted for emergency use approval. If even one of the vaccines gets the approval, a countrywide rollout to immunise the four high-risk groups starting with healthcare workers will begin soon thereafter. India has been vaccinating millions of young children with a variety of vaccines each year and hence has the entire system in place to roll out any new vaccine under the universal immunisation programme. But this is the first time a vaccine to be administered outside the programme and specifically for adults is to be rolled out. Since several aspects of the COVID-19 vaccination programme are new — vaccinating millions of adults belonging to specific groups, administering two doses of the vaccine a few weeks apart, and the process of enrolling the recipients and rolling out the immunisation programme — the government has rightly decided to undertake a dry run for vaccine administration. The dry run is expected to be initiated this week in four States — Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, and Punjab. It will allow the administrators to test the vaccination process and check the usage of the Co-WIN IT platform for management of the entire vaccination process including data entry, allocation of date and time and a drill of session sites with test beneficiaries. The linkages between planning, implementation and reporting mechanisms will also be tested.
•Since four high-risk groups have been prioritised to receive the vaccine, the first task is to register the recipients on the Co-WIN platform. Unlike vaccinating children under the universal immunisation programme, the COVID-19 vaccine will be administered to 100 adults at each designated site on a pre-defined date and time. Prior to vaccination, the bona fide of the registered adults are to be determined. The IT platform has to generate the date and time when people can receive the second dose. When more than one vaccine becomes available, it is essential to ensure that people receive the same vaccine twice. Checking and reporting of all adverse events immediately and days after the vaccination is essential, all the more as no COVID-19 vaccine has undergone long-term follow-up for safety during the trial. Both the vaccines that are at an advanced stage of testing in India do not require ultra-low temperature for delivery and storage. Hence, the existing facilities of the universal immunisation programme in most districts can be used for storing the vaccines. As the plan is to vaccinate 300 million people in the four high-risk groups, 600 million doses will be required. This exercise should therefore look at creating additional storage capacity at these facilities to store millions of COVID-19 vaccines, as facilities for vaccine storage cannot be dedicated to a single vaccine.
📰 The facade cracks for China
The year 2020 has put on display the many defects in the country’s growing might
•The Spring Festival is when the Chinese are at their sprightly best. The spectacular dragon and lion dances, music performances, and people sending out New Year greetings create a festive air. This year, however, the COVID-19 outbreak disrupted the revelry, forcing the government to order citizens to be sequestered in their homes. But in the aftermath of the world grappling with the contagion, China seemed to embody Winston Churchill’s saying: never let a good crisis go to waste.
•Hong Kong became one of the most significant arenas where the Communist Party of China came down with full might. The special administration region, which enjoys autonomy, had been on the boil since June 2019 over a legislation (which was later scrapped) that would allow the local government to extradite criminals to the mainland. Demonstrators had resorted to vandalism over the law, an act that the Communist Party of China saw as a challenge to its writ. The island had witnessed protests earlier in 2014, when demonstrators lay siege to parts of the island seeking reforms to the electoral process. This time round, the reprisals were swift and unflinching. On June 30, 2020, minutes before the anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China by the British, China’s legislature approved a new national security law for Hong Kong. While critics contend that the law essentially curbs dissent and civil liberties, China insists it will in help restoration of stability. Beijing backed up its efforts to bring to heel a re
calcitrant opposition by passing another law that empowers the government to expel lawmakers in Hong Kong’s Legislative Council without recourse to judicial process. Following this, four legislators were disqualified over national security grounds, and the remaining Opposition resigned in protest.
•Beyond Hong Kong, China also took on Taiwan, challenged India along the Himalayan frontier, escalated tensions in the South and East China Seas, bullied European nations, and flexed its trade muscles vis-à-vis Australia. At a time when global multilateralism has been facing serious challenges, China’s manipulation of institutions like the World Health Organization has led to an even greater sense of disenchantment with the multilateral order.
No room for dissent
•In the domestic sphere, too, there has been a clean-up even among the Party’s own ranks. Cai Xia, a former professor at the Communist Party’s Central Party School that grooms its top leadership, was expelled in August for calling President Xi Jinping a ‘mafia boss’. Ms. Cai, who has been a champion of political reform, is living abroad. Another comrade, Ren Zhiqiang, who obliquely criticised Mr. Xi’s management of the pandemic, received an 18-year jail sentence on bribery charges. Mr. Ren’s father had served as one of Mao Zedong’s vice-ministers; Ms. Cai’s parents had taken part in the 1949 Communist Revolution. Financial czar Jack Ma was left red-faced after his Ant Group’s $37 billion IPO was grounded ahead of its debut in November. China’s second-richest man had earlier slammed financial regulators at a conclave of bankers, and an expose in 2017 of a politburo member’s daughter in a newspaper controlled by Mr. Jack had not gone down well. Red ‘Princelings’ now know that the Communist Party is in no mood to brook any dissent. Businessmen may be the economy’s stars, but the message that the Party is the ship’s captain, is clear.
•For nearly four decades, China pursued an exports-led growth strategy called ‘international circulation’, entrenching itself into production networks. The economy is now charting a new course due to factors like bleak economic outlook of nations reeling from the pandemic, the U.S. imposing restrictions against Chinese technology firms, and its ‘decoupling’ push. Under the new strategy, China will make domestic consumption a bigger engine of growth, while also relying on international circulation. Mr. Xi announced at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit this year that the new policy will come into effect from 2021.
•During the Bund Summit, a conclave of regulators and bankers held in Shanghai, China signalled that it will improve financial ties with the world. The China Securities Regulatory Commission is building more channels for investors based abroad to put their money into capital markets on the mainland. The fine print of how China plans to execute the shift from an export-led growth strategy to bolstering its domestic market will become clearer once the 14th five-year plan is approved by its legislature in early 2021.
‘Wolf Warrior’ approach
•Cinema is a reflection of society — every nation likes to see its imagined persona on screen. The ‘Wolf Warrior’ series, in which the Chinese assume the onerous responsibility of “saving the world”, has undercurrents of the nation’s exceptionalism. These movies seem to be having an impact on an unlikely quarter — China’s diplomatic corps. Mr. Xi has repeatedly highlighted the need for developing a “fighting spirit” to breach the hurdles facing China. On a state visit to Nepal, Mr. Xi warned that a bid to divide China would end in “smashed bodies and bones ground to powder”. This aggressive posturing is far removed from Deng Xiaoping’s counsel to ‘keep a low profile’. Instead of building goodwill, China’s envoys used their official social media handles to push a theory that American military was the cause of COVID-19, and trolled Australia over alleged war crimes committed by its elite soldiers fighting in Afghanistan. Quizzed about the verbal bellicosity of its representatives abroad, Foreign Minister Wang Yi asserted that they would certainly push back against insults to national honour.
•The Trump Administration also took on China frontally, both bilaterally and in concert with other nations, even as the State Department released a comprehensive report which is being described as a potential blueprint for the U.S.’s response to China’s rise as an authoritarian superpower. By escalating a tariff war with China, U.S. President Donald Trump underscored the need for a potential economic decoupling of the world’s two major economies. During his election campaign, President-elect Joe Biden, too, took a hard line vis-à-vis China, and it is unlikely that his approach towards China would radically alter the trajectory of America’s China policy. And the more pushback Mr. Xi faces globally, the more aggressive his domestic and foreign policy agenda is likely to become.
•The muzzling of anti-establishment voices in Hong Kong, ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy, and an aggressive pursuit of national interests have hurt China’s image. A survey by the Pew Research Center across 14 nations shows that a majority of the respondents have an unfavourable opinion of China. Today’s China aspires to be a global power but bristles at criticism, domestic or foreign. Many in China may see this year as one in which the country came into its own as a power dictating the global agenda, but for many around the world, this is also the year when China’s vulnerabilities, as well the challenges it poses to the global order, became all too apparent.
📰 Notes from a year of unease
Following a year of debilitating problems, restoring India’s image in 2021 will not be easy
•The year 2020 was a debilitating one for much of the world, India included. India had more than its share of problems. As 2020 comes to a close, it might be worthwhile to take a hard look at these issues to ensure that 2021 does not become another wasted year.
Pandemic and other issues
•The COVID-19 pandemic, which embraced every segment of Indian society and at a conservative estimate afflicted more than a crore of its citizens (leading to about 1.5 lakh fatalities), was the most insidious threat. News of the availability of more than one vaccine for treatment of COVID-19 has by no means changed the element of fatalism that has gripped society.
•Apart from the pandemic, 2020 witnessed other events that aggravated the sense of unease. Since April, India has confronted an unprecedented situation on the border with China in eastern Ladakh. Unprovoked Chinese aggression at several points even led to the death of a score of Indian soldiers. Ever since, the border has remained live; as of now there is no end in sight. Chinese intransigence has led to a grave hiatus in India-China relations.
•Internal problems such as Naxalite violence and Jammu and Kashmir endured during much of 2020. The resentment caused by the altered status of J&K and the incarceration of political leaders has yet to subside, even as J&K held elections to its District Development Councils. West Bengal is beginning to resemble a ‘war zone’ as it prepares for Assembly elections in 2021. Relations between Delhi and Kolkata are at their nadir today, and grave concerns exist about violence during the elections. The divide between West Bengal and the Centre is also mirrored in the relations between the Centre and other Opposition-ruled States, a grim commentary on the state of Centre-State relations today.
•Highly damaging from the point of view of any established democracy was the resort to populist demagoguery, mainly by the ruling dispensation intended to obscure ground realities, to achieve desired political ends. This has led to unprecedented levels of political polarisation. Linked to this is also a policy of engineering defections which has plumbed new depths. The recourse to vitriolic public discourse is again a sad commentary on India’s democracy today. Not entirely unrelated to this is the diminishing role and utility of Parliament as a platform for an honest exchange of views. The sanctity of Parliament was further undermined in 2020 with sessions being dispensed with under various pretexts.
•On other parameters as well, 2020 proved to be a bad year. The economy is in recession. India has slipped further down the scale in the Human Development Index. Slippages have occurred in the Global Economic Freedom Index. New items of legislation on social issues (a law against forced conversion by marriage, for instance) tend to aggravate an already divisive polity. The farmers’ agitation is another instance where official intransigence has led to a situation in which the Supreme Court had sought to intervene, though without tangible results.
Challenges for the year ahead
•Restoring India’s image in 2021 will, hence, not be easy. The moot question is where to begin. For all the criticism, and notwithstanding a perceived decline on many parameters, three aspects in favour of the ruling dispensation stand out: a string of electoral successes for the ruling party; the personal popularity of the Prime Minister; and the absence of any serious competitor on the national stage. This provides the ruling party with a relative degree of freedom to undertake major changes, including structural shifts, provided it is not overly consumed by the euphoria that it has decimated the Opposition and faces no real challenge.
•Whether those in authority will display sufficient sagacity to recognise this is the key question that will decide the future of 2021. Winning elections is one aspect. Achieving an emotional connect is another. More critical, however, is the need to deliver on promises and understand the seriousness of newer challenges the nation faces.
•New thinking is a sine qua non if India is to bounce back from a situation that was catastrophic by any standard. It may need a total makeover of the decision-making process and the giving up of many entrenched ideas and concepts. More than anything else, the tendency of some in authority to indulge in rhetorical flourishes must be avoided; they must aim instead at achieving tangible outcomes. It is the ability of a government to deliver on current issues that matter in the final reckoning, and for this the government must demonstrate effective leadership. It might be best if the authorities begin by ticking off a list of problems left over from 2020, and consider how best to achieve results.
•In the realm of foreign policy, India must not remain content or satisfied with the current stand-off with China in the Ladakh sector. India should think of what better options are available to it to resolve a conflict that is certainly working to its disadvantage, and is enabling many of its neighbours to play China against India. If India is to be viewed as the only nation in Asia that can stand-up to the China challenge, it must come up with a whole new paradigm of ideas on which further actions can be formulated. Statements critical of China, even amounting to abuse in many instances, are hardly an answer to the most serious foreign policy challenge the country faces.
•The state of the economy should be next. Mere claims that the economy has rebounded hardly suffice. India must seek, in all honesty, to enhance its competitive advantage vis-a-vis other nations which, according to various global indices, appear to be performing better than India. Misleading concepts that an export-oriented economic strategy is damaging — implicitly suggesting that India should look inward rather than outwards to enlarge its economy — need to be rejected, and India should enhance its export capacity. India’s real strength flows from its diversity, and its ability to utilise all available opportunities. In 2021, we need to see India’s genius blooming in full measure. Side by side with this, all attempts to tamper with technological and academic excellence, as prompted in some quarters during 2020, need to be avoided.
•The other pressing challenge in 2021 would be job creation for the youth, who are India’s most abiding asset. The government must take urgent steps to set right the disruptions in the labour market caused by the pandemic and other contributory factors. Creating new jobs in new industries should be a critical requirement. Stimulating demand would ensure growth in job opportunities, and this should go hand in hand with this task. The importance of such measures must not be underestimated.
Restoring confidence
•Next year must be the year in which a serious attempt is made by the government, and Delhi in particular, to restore confidence in constitutional proprieties, practices and principles. There is an impression amongst those who have differences or disagreements with the ruling dispensation at the Centre that the latter is violating the principles and rules sanctified by the Constitution, and that the Opposition’s rights are being steadily undermined. The intention, according to the latter, is to achieve single-party rule across the entire nation.
•It could well be argued that this is a total misunderstanding or misreading of the actions taken by the Centre, but it is apparent that there is a crisis of confidence which is affecting the body politic. In these circumstances, perceptions appear to have as much impact as facts. In 2021, this impression needs to be reversed. The starting point would be effecting an improvement in Centre-State relations, particularly between Delhi and States ruled by Opposition parties. 2021 could well be the make-or-break point as far as this delicate balance enshrined in our federal Constitution is concerned. As digital technology advances, other concerns that an unduly centralised Central government could use this to further reduce the independent authority of States will again need to be dispelled. Effective cooperation between the Centre and the States must be restored as early as possible to instil confidence about India’s democratic future.
📰 Towards an effective vaccination distribution policy
The government must examine the principle underlying the triage scheme and whether private players should be allowed space
•India plans to vaccinate 300 million people against COVID-19 over the next 6-7 months. The government plans to give priority to healthcare workers and other front-line workers, followed by everyone who is above 50 years of age. This will mean that roughly 20% of the population will be vaccinated by July or August 2021.
•Since all the vaccines that are currently in the spotlight require two doses, the government will have to acquire 600 million doses. Fortunately, Pune’s Serum Institute of India is the world’s largest producer of vaccines. There are reports that the government has already struck a deal with the Serum Institute to acquire 500 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Emergency authorisation for this vaccine is likely to follow soon. There are other vaccine frontrunners including Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and the Russian Sputnik V whose clinical trials in India are being conducted by Reddy’s Labs. So, provided that there are no last-minute setbacks, the government should have no problems in acquiring the required number of doses.
•A few issues are worth discussing. Perhaps the most important is the principle underlying the triage scheme adopted by the government. A different and somewhat contentious issue is whether the government will allow private players any space in the vaccination process.
Who gets priority?
•The government’s strategy of giving priority to front-line workers and elderly people is in line with the practice being followed in the U.K. and the U.S., the two major countries that have been the leaders in the COVID-19 vaccination drive. The rationale for this is to protect those who are most likely to be infected in the future as well as those who are most vulnerable to the health consequences of the infection. However, a vaccination drive such as this should have two distinct objectives: one, providing protection to those vaccinated, and two, to minimise or at least slow down the speed and spread of the viral transmission. Ideally, a vaccine distribution programme should keep both these in mind. In some cases, there is no conflict between these two objectives. For instance, the priority given to healthcare professionals satisfies both objectives: these are individuals who have high levels of exposure and they also act as active disease vectors since they interact with large numbers of people. However, the priority given to older people may not actually minimise the total social and economic cost inflicted by the virus in the long run. The elderly are less mobile, have a lower level of social interaction, and are hence less likely to spread the virus. Obviously, a younger person who interacts with a larger number of people is both more likely to be infected and subsequently infect others. This suggests that densely populated areas — for instance, the Dharavi slum — should receive far more attention than they are likely to get under the current strategy. Of course, the point is that allocation guidelines must squarely face the trade-offs between the direct and indirect objectives. This is a difficult trade-off but one about which reasoned thought is essential.
Involving private hospitals
•The government’s procurement strategy seems to depend entirely on domestic sources. It also plans to rely entirely on public resources for distribution without involving private hospitals. Moreover, the government plans to bear the entire cost of vaccination. The latter is particularly important and appropriate since crucial health facilities should be accessible to all. But consider the following proposition. Suppose Pfizer or some other multinational pharmaceutical company approaches the government both for authorisation of a vaccine as well as for permission to import and sell (for a profit) to those who can afford it. Let us assume, in order to focus on the ethical issue, that the vaccine is medically safe and effective. What should the government do?
•Any approval from the government will enable the affluent to jump the vaccination queue. This will inevitably attract the charge that the government is catering to the interests of the richer groups in the population. But perhaps a more dispassionate analysis would suggest that allowing the private sector to provide additional supplies of the vaccine would not really be a bad policy decision after all — even when the interests of the poor are taken into account. The most important consideration that has to be kept in mind is that this would not decrease the availability of the vaccine to the poor. Of course, this assumes that the government will and should continue to procure all available domestically produced vaccines and supply them through its own distribution channel. In other words, it should follow its own distribution policies as if the additional sources of supply do not exist. It has to ensure that there is no reduction in the availability of the vaccine for the poor. In fact, there may actually be an increase in supply and hence less waiting time for the less affluent since some of the richer individuals in the target group will opt out of the government distribution system and prefer to get vaccinated at some private outlet.
•Another potential benefit accruing to the entire population is that the larger the numbers who get vaccinated, the lower will be the speed of virus transmission amongst the non-vaccinated.
•But is it all likely that private suppliers will request government permission to import and distribute the vaccine in India? Two recent headlines suggest that this is possible. The first is the news that the regulatory authorities have authorised the emergency use of the Moderna vaccine across the U.S. Several other vaccines are already conducting Phase 3 trials and there is a strong possibility that there will be a significant boost in the global supply of COVID-19 vaccines. The second is that a Belgian Minister has revealed very sensitive price information by tweeting the prices that the European Union has agreed to pay for leading COVID-19 vaccines. It turns out that these prices are substantially lower than the prices that Moderna and Pfizer, for example, have been quoting to other countries. For instance, the tweet reveals that Moderna will be charging $18 per dose while Pfizer’s price at €12 is even lower. In contrast, Indian newspapers have mentioned that Pfizer is contemplating a price of $37 per dose in India. Of course, the EU could get a very good deal simply because the large size of its market gives it a lot of bargaining power. But India too provides a large market even if the cost of vaccination is around ₹5,000. Of course, some centralised purchasing will be essential in order to exploit the bargaining power associated with the size of the market. But this should not be particularly hard to achieve.
