📰 Karnataka tops in innovation, shows NITI Aayog index
Maharashtra races past T.N. to occupy the second position
•Karnataka retained its leadership position in the major States category in the second edition of India Innovation Index released by NITI Aayog on Wednesday.
•It was followed by Maharashtra, which moved past Tamil Nadu to occupy the second place.
•Other States in the top 10 are Telangana, Kerala, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. Barring Maharashtra, all other States in the top five are in the south.
•Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Bihar scored the lowest on the index, which put them at the bottom in the “major States” category.
•“Karnataka’s rank is attributable to its substantive number of venture capital deals, registered Geographical Indications and information and communications technology exports. Its high Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflow has also enhanced the innovation capabilities of the State,” the government think-tank said.
•With the pandemic triggering an economic shutdown, the role of innovation to revitalise the economy has never been more important, it added.
•Delhi topped among Union Territories, and Himachal Pradesh among North-Eastern and Hill States.
•The India Innovation Index, Niti Aayog said, aims to create an extensive framework for a continual evaluation of India’s innovation environment. The index aims to rank States and UTs based on their scores, recognise opportunities and challenges, and assist in tailoring government policies to foster innovation.
•“The India Innovation Index will create synergies between different stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem, thus enabling India to shift to competitive good governance,” Niti Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar said.
•The India Innovation Report also pointed out that the best practices observed within the States should often be documented and disseminated to encourage peer-to-peer learning. In addition, to ensure that the index’s framework is even more robust to capture the best picture for the Indian innovative ecosystem, a micro-analysis of the State-level policies must be done. “The objective of this reform is to focus on state innovation policies, local innovation cells, and the Knowledge Output developing from such entities. This will further delve into the state-level nuances required to understand the underlying innovative tendencies within a state,” it said.
A consignment of 1,50,000 doses arrives in Bhutan, 1,00,000 doses reach Male
•India on Wednesday began the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines to six “neighbouring and key partner countries”. The delivery began with two special flights carrying the first consignments of Covishield to the Maldives and Bhutan. Sources said Bangladesh and Nepal will receive two large consignments of the same vaccine on Thursday followed by supplies to Myanmar and the Seychelles.
•As part of the vaccine diplomacy, a consignment of 1,50,000 doses reached Thimphu on Wednesday. Bhutan is the first country to receive the vaccine manufactured by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII). The vaccine is part of an overall programme to build Bhutanese capacity to fight the pandemic. On the request of Bhutan, India has also fast tracked the release of Rs. 501 crore for Thimphu’s “reprioritised projects” to meet the emerging challenges caused by the pandemic.
•Later on Wednesday, a consignment of 1,00,000 doses was received at the Male airport by Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid and Health Minister Ahmed Naseem.
•“Maldives is [among] the first to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. It’s a gift from India. India has proved to be a solid friend of the Maldives. India gave us support when our students had to be evacuated from Wuhan in China. In these difficult circumstances, India is the first country. We thank India for supporting us always in our challenging moments,” Mr. Shahid said.
•In a press statement, the High Commission of India in Male said, “India gifted 1,00,000 doses of the India-manufactured COVID-19 vaccine to the Maldives today to meet the immediate requirements of vaccinating healthcare workers, frontline workers and those with co-morbidities.”
•India will ‘gift’ one million doses of Covishield to Nepal and two million doses to Dhaka on Thursday.
•The Health Department of Bangladesh had earlier announced that it was expecting the vaccine on Wednesday but the delivery was finally slotted for Thursday. At a joint press conference with Ambassador to Kathmandu Vinay Mohan Kwatra, Health and Public Health Minister of Nepal Hridayesh Tripathi said the announcement of the ‘gift’ of the vaccine from India is a ‘wonder’.
•The announcement came days after Foreign Minister Pradeep Kumar Gyawali placed requirement of the India-manufactured vaccine to fight the pandemic in the Himalayan country.
•The Ministry of External Affairs on Tuesday declared that India will continue to supply vaccine to “neighbouring and key partner countries”, “keeping in view the domestic requirements of the phased roll-out”.
•“It will be ensured that domestic manufacturers will have adequate stocks to meet domestic requirements while supplying abroad,” said the Ministry of External Affairs on Tuesday informing that India has also carried out capacity building and training workshops for neighbouring countries.
📰 Removing the creases in housework valuation
The work women perform for the family should be valued equally with men’s work during the continuance of marriage
•“The wife owes service and labor to her husband as much and as absolutely as the slave does to his master. This grates harshly upon the ears of Christendom; but it is made palpably and practically true all through our statute books, despite the poetic fancy which views woman as elevated in the social estate; but a little lower than the angels,” said Antoinette Brown Blackwell, the first woman protestant minister of the United States.
•We go a step ahead and glorify our women as goddesses but deny them equal rights, and under the latest Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh Ordinances, even the right to choose their spouses. Veteran actor Kamal Haasan and his Makkal Needhi Maiam party who recently promised salaries for housewives as a part of the party’s election manifesto, has revived the debate on the recognition of domestic work as work. What is the history of recognition of work by wives as work in the West? What have the legislative initiatives and judicial responses been in this regard?
The burden on women
•As in the 2011 Census, while 159.85 million women stated household work as their main occupation, a mere 5.79 men referred to it as their main occupation. Justice N.V. Ramana in his crisp and authoritative concurring judgment of January 5, 2021 in Kirti and Another v. Oriental Insurance Company has referred to the Time Use in India-2019 Report of the National Statistical Office, Government of India (published in September 2020) which says that on an average, while Indian women spend 299 minutes a day on unpaid domestic services for household members, men spend just 97 minutes. Women also spend 134 minutes in a day on unpaid caregiving services for household members. A French government’s Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress in 2009 that studied the situation in Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, France, Finland and the U.S. drew similar conclusions. A report entitled ‘Women’s Economic Contribution through their Unpaid Work: A Case Study of India’ (2009) had estimated the economic value of services by women to be to the tune of a whopping $612.8 billion annually.
•Justice Ramana not only listed the various activities women undertake but also referred to British economist Arthur Cecil Pigou who had lamented that the household work by wives is not taken into consideration in calculating national income.
Other judicial observations
•In Arun Kumar Agrawal v. National Insurance Company (2010), the Supreme Court not only acknowledged the contribution of the housewives as invaluable but also observed that it cannot be computed in terms of money. Her gratuitous services rendered with true love and affection cannot be equated with services rendered by others. Similar observations were recently made in Rajendra Singh (2020). But then these cases dealt with a limited question of compensation under the Motor Vehicles Act to calculate the compensation for the death of homemakers, and not the recognition of a wife’s right in her husband’s income during the subsistence of marriage. Justice A.K. Ganguly in Arun Kumar Agrawal (2010) referred to Census 2001 that is carried out under an Act of Parliament and had categorised those who perform household duties — i.e. about 36 crore women in India — as non-workers and clubbed them together with beggars, prostitutes and prisoners (who are not engaged in economically unproductive work).
A hierarchical structure
•For centuries, the English common law of marital status was starkly hierarchical. Forget the recognition of a homemaker’s work as work; she had no right even in respect of her work outside home. In fact till 1851, no country had recognised a wife’s right in earnings of any sort. If a housewife worked for pay in or out of the home, it was her husband’s prerogative to collect her wages. Strangely, seventh century Islamic law clearly mandates husbands to pay wives if they decide to suckle their children and entitle them to spend certain portions of husband’s money without his consent.
•By the middle of the 19th century, some American States started reforming the common law of marital status by enacting the “Married Women’s Property Acts”. Some of these statutes exempted the wives’ real property from their husband’s debts. By 1850, the era of “earning statutes” started which granted wives property rights in earnings from their “separate” or “personal” labour. But the Census measures of the economy that appeared in the aftermath of the American Civil War characterised household work as “unproductive”, and, consistent with this gendered valuation of family labour, excluded women engaged in income-producing work in the household from the count of those “gainfully employed”. It seems that the Indian Census referred above followed this regressive precedent.
Separate spheres
•Home and market for centuries were considered as two distinct spheres. The market was a male sphere of selfish competitiveness, but the home was celebrated as a female sphere, a site of spiritual uplift that offered relief from the vicissitudes of market struggle. American feminist economist Nancy Folbre rightly remarked, “the moral elevation of the home was accompanied by the economic devaluation of the work performed there”. The tendency of a “separate spheres” reasoning was thus to reinforce the legal ordering of family life and justify a husband’s control of family assets.
•Subsequently, women demanded a right to own themselves, their earnings, their genius. Accordingly, in 1851, at the Worcester Convention, it was resolved: “that since the economy of the household is generally as much the source of family wealth as the labor and enterprise of man, therefore the wife should, during life, have the same control over the joint earnings as per husband, and the right to dispose at her death of the same proportion of it as he”. They finally achieved success when the equal rights of wives in the matrimonial property were recognised. The Third National Women’s Liberation conference, in England in 1972, for the first time, explicitly demanded payment of wages for the household work.
•In India, the debate on joint property rights of married women is not new though we still do not have joint matrimonial property law. Veena Verma did introduce a private member Bill in 1994 entitled The Married Women (Protection of Rights) Bill, 1994. Her Bill provided that a married woman shall be entitled to have an equal share in the property of her husband from the date of her marriage and shall also be entitled to dispose of her share in the property by way of sale, gift, mortgage, will or in any other manner whatsoever. But in 2010, even registration of the National Housewives Association as a trade union was denied as domestic work was treated as neither trade nor industry.
A step and suggestion
•The United Progressive Alliance government, in 2012, had proposed to make it mandatory for husbands to pay a monthly ‘salary’ to their wives. One cartoon had depicted a husband saying to his wife, “here is your salary for the month. However, ₹3355 has been deducted as you were at your parent’s home for a week.” Mr. Haasan should understand that the term ‘salary’ as monthly payment is indeed problematic as it indicates an employer-employee relationship, i.e., a relationship of subordination with the employer having disciplinary control over the employee. Wives do not deserve a master-servant relationship.
•The United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, in 1991, had recommended measurement and quantification of unremunerated domestic activities of women and their recognition in GDP so that the de facto economic contribution of women is highlighted. Matrimonial property laws do give women their share but only when the marital tie comes to an end. The time has come to insist that the work women perform for the family should be valued equally with men’s work during the continuance of marriage. If women become a little assertive, prenuptial marriage agreements can easily solve this problem with the insertion of the clause on wives’ right in husband’s earnings and properties being included in such agreements.
📰 The many infirmities of China’s Western Theatre Command
Xi’s renewed aggression points to underlying issues
•In the first week of the new year, Chinese President Xi Jinping instructed his armed forces to be “combat-ready to act at any second” as they began their new training exercises. Mr. Xi also issued new rules for the selection, training and promotion of military personnel. There were several reasons for this aggressive rhetoric.
•Firstly, with Joe Biden assuming the U.S. Presidency on January 20, Mr. Xi wants to signal confidence and military preparedness in responding to new U.S. policies on the freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea and Taiwan straits. Secondly, Mr. Xi’s aggressive pursuit of disputed territories in the South China Sea, Taiwan and across borders with India has increased the chances of military conflicts. Thirdly, the performance of China’s Western Theatre Command (WTC) in Ladakh last year was below par. It suffered a high number of casualties in the June 15 Galwan valley clash. The Indian Army also captured the strategic mountainous heights at Rezang La and other passes.
•The performance of the WTC in Ladakh last year was poor for a number of reasons. Chinese troops had seen combat after 41 years and were hence not prepared. They have also been suffering from low morale as the force’s senior officers have not got promotions in time due to doubts about their loyalty to Mr. Xi. Many of them were close to Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou, both Vice-Chairmen of the Central Military Commission, who were ousted by Mr. Xi in his anti-corruption campaign, according to reports in the Chinese media. While Xu died in custody under investigation in 2015, Guo got a life sentence in 2016.
•The WTC has been facing problems in acclimatisation of its soldiers. Recently, 10,000 troops from the WTC were moved to lower locations for recuperation. The force has been struggling with managing the joint training of its army, strategic support and air force units, with the arrival of new fighter and stealth aircraft, rockets, artificial intelligence-based drones and other equipment.
•Recently, Mr. Xi replaced Gen. Zhao Zongqi, the retiring commander of the WTC, with Gen. Zhao Xidong, who had served at Doklam in 2017 and is close to him. Mr. Xi reportedly assured the new commander that his men would be given the same promotions and benefits as those in the other theatres, with special perks for combat troops stationed in “tough and remote bordering locations”.
Ambitious vision
•In the past, promotions in the Chinese armed forces were based on the political loyalty of officers, their connections with the Chinese Communist Party leadership and personal background, with merit bagging low priority. Now, the forces are required to display their loyalty to Mr. Xi. The President has also changed the posture of the Chinese armed forces from defensive to offensive.
•Borrowing from American military doctrines, Mr. Xi has unveiled an ambitious vision for the restructuring of the Chinese armed forces, by introducing the Joint Theatre Command concept to align with various regional threats. The armed forces are also being infused with new technologies like artificial intelligence and new concepts of “intelligentised” warfare. However, the training of the Chinese armed forces to adapt to these American concepts would not be easy given the lack of cross-fertilisation with other forces, which have successfully incorporated these doctrines.
•The country’s armed forces also suffer from a number of other structural issues: they are a political and not a professional force, and the personnel are mostly conscripts with low levels of education and low motivation (mostly from one-child families). They lack a tough mindset and battlefield experience, and face a serious problem of ‘brain drain’. These limitations will certainly affect the performance of the Chinese armed forces in a war with any professional army, as was seen in Ladakh.
📰 True empowerment of the electricity consumer
Without strong accountability provisions, the consumer protection rules will not guarantee better power supply quality
•Did electricity consumers truly get “empowered” this December? This was the claim of the Union Power Ministry as the Electricity (Rights of Consumers) Rules, 2020 was promulgated in December, almost two years since the declaration of universal electrification.
Issue of supply quality
•Many States have not been able to provide quality supply, especially to rural and small electricity consumers. The enactment of consumer-centric rules does spark public debate that brings the rights of consumers to the fore. In this vein, the Rules lay an emphasis on national minimum standards for the performance parameters of electricity distribution companies (DISCOMs), without urban-rural distinction, especially for new connections, metering and billing. They also reiterate the need for automatically compensating consumers. But will these rules really lead to better supply quality?
•What are the limitations of the Rules? It needs to be recognised that providing quality supply is primarily the responsibility of States and DISCOMs. Similar (or better) provisions by various State Electricity Regulatory Commissions (SERCs) already exist in the Standards of Performance (SoP) regulations. Such regulations have been in place for two decades in most States.
Lack of accountability
•It is not because of a lack of rules or regulations that quality supply is not provided; rather, it is on account of a lack of accountability systems to enforce them. Unfortunately, neither these rules nor past efforts, be it through the draft National Tariff Policy, the proposed Electricity Act amendments, or various committee processes, address these accountability concerns.
•Guarantee of round the clock supply is a provision that the Rules emphasise, which might be missing in State regulations. But there are doubts on the efficacy of automatic compensation payments towards such a guarantee. This is because the availability of power supply is inadequately monitored, even at 11 kV feeders, let alone at the consumer location. Hence, it is not clear how the failure of power supply is going to be recorded.
•Moreover, such compensation will require serious commitment. For example, according to government reports, rural areas received about 20 hours of supply, in August 2020. Following existing regulations, this would entail compensation of hundreds of crores, but the actual amount paid adds up to just a few lakhs in each State for the entire year; even here it involves the resourceful few who could escalate their complaints to higher levels. This highlights not only the need for implementation of existing provisions in letter and spirit but also amending them with strong accountability provisions.
Weakening provisions
•Further, the Rules, in few cases, dilute progressive mechanisms that exist in State regulations. Consider the case of electricity meter-related complaints. The Rules say that faulty meters should be tested within 30 days of receipt of a complaint. Compared to this, regulations that were published as early as 2004, 2007 and 2012 in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh, respectively, say that such testing needs to be conducted within seven days.
•A similar observation can be drawn from the suggested composition of the Consumer Grievance Redressal Forum. The Rules say that the forum — constituted to remedy complaints against DISCOMs as per existing laws and regulations — should be headed by a senior officer of the company. This is a regressive provision that would reduce the number of cases that are decided in favour of consumers, thereby eroding its credibility. State regulations in Delhi have different eligibility criteria, strictly mentioning that a DISCOM employee, who was in service in the last two years, cannot be appointed as a forum member. Maharashtra, Telangana and Bihar, among others, have the option of appointing a retired senior judicial officer or other independent members as the chairperson. It would be unfortunate if States now started amending their regulations to be in line with the Rules.
•The Rules are not forward looking either, given the government’s intent to promote rooftop solar systems. They guarantee net metering for a solar rooftop unit less than 10 kW, but there is no clarity if those above 10 kW can also avail net metering. This could lead to a change in regulations in many States based on their own interpretations. Instead of providing clarity, it is likely that this provision will lead to more confusion. The possible litigation that follows would be detrimental to investments in rooftop solar units, and would discourage medium and large consumers to opt for an environment-friendly, cost-effective option.
Need for commitment
•What can the central government do to ensure accountability? A useful way to protect consumers would be to nudge SERCs to assess the SoP reports of DISCOMs and revise their regulations more frequently. Also, SERCs should organise public processes to help consumers raise their concerns. DISCOMs could be directed to ensure automatic metering at least at the 11 kV feeder level, making this data available online.
•The Forum of Regulators — a central collective of SERCs — could come up with updated model SoP regulations. The Central Electricity Authority of India could be directed to collect supply quality data from DISCOMs, publicly host them on online portals and prepare analysis reports. Such efforts need to go beyond the quality of information that is currently hosted on portals such as the National Power Portal. Central agencies have taken proactive efforts to ensure regular tariff revision. They could also support independent surveys and nudge State agencies to enforce existing SoP regulations. The central government could disburse funds for financial assistance programmes based on audited SoP reports.
•With a focused one-time effort, electrification drives could provide connections across the country. But ensuring round the clock supply will require continuous efforts. We noted that without accountability, consumer compensation is meagre. The official response to this is the many ‘ifs and buts’ in the implementation of regulations. The enactment of the new Rules will not change this status quo. Reducing the ‘ifs and buts’ that delay or deny justice is what governments, DISCOMs and regulators need to jointly work on. They should demonstrate the commitment and the will power to implement existing regulations. It is not yet late to recognise this and initiate concerted efforts to truly empower consumers.
