📰 Coronavirus | Pandemic may have doubled poverty in India, says Pew study
Pew Research report suggests middle class may have shrunk by 30% and number of poor risen by 7.5 crore
•India’s middle class may have shrunk by a third due to 2020’s pandemic-driven recession, while the number of poor people — earning less than ₹150 per day — more than doubled, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center. In a comparison, Chinese incomes remained relatively unshaken, with just a 2% drop in the middle class population, it found.
•The report, released on Thursday, uses World Bank projections of economic growth to estimate the impact of COVID-19 on Indian incomes. The lockdown triggered by the pandemic resulted in shut businesses, lost jobs and falling incomes, plunging the Indian economy into a deep recession. China managed to avoid a contraction, although growth slowed, the report said.
•“The middle class in India is estimated to have shrunk by 3.2 crore in 2020 as a consequence of the downturn, compared with the number it may have reached absent the pandemic,” said the report, defining the middle class as people with incomes of approximately ₹700-1,500 or $10-20 per day.
•“Meanwhile, the number of people who are poor in India (with incomes of $2 or less a day) is estimated to have increased by 7.5 crore because of the COVID-19 recession. This accounts for nearly 60% of the global increase in poverty,” the report added, estimating an increase from almost 6 crore to 13.4 crore poor people. It also noted the record spike in MGNREGA participants as proof that the poor were struggling to find work.
•The vast majority of India’s population fall into the low income tier, earning about ₹150 to 700 per day. Pew’s projections suggest this group shrank from 119.7 crore to 116.2 crore per day, with about 3.5 crore dropping below the poverty line.
•The middle income group is likely to have decreased from almost 10 crore to just 6.6 crore, while the richer population who earn more than ₹1,500 a day also fell almost 30% to 1.8 crore people.
•In contrast, China’s middle class is likely to see a miniscule dip of just one crore, while the number of poor people may have gone up by 10 lakh, according to the report.
•Pew warned that the situation may actually be worse than estimated. “The methodology in this analysis assumes that incomes change at the same rate for all people,” it explained. “If the COVID-19 recession has worsened inequality, the increase in the number of poor is likely greater than estimated in this analysis, and the decrease in the number who are high income is likely less than estimated. The middle class may have shrunk by more than projected,” it added.
Court says they are merely opinions, do not have force of law.
•The Supreme Court on Friday prima facie found no harm in State Legislative Assemblies, such as those in Kerala and West Bengal, passing resolutions against Central laws like the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act or the controversial new farm laws.
•A Bench, led by Chief Justice Sharad A. Bobde, said these resolutions are merely “opinions” of the majority members of a Legislative Assembly and do not have the force of law.
•The court was hearing a PIL filed by a Rajasthan-based NGO, Samta Andolan Samiti, that said State Assemblies, such as of Rajasthan, Kerala, Punjab and West Bengal, have no business passing resolutions against Central laws that come under the Union List of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution.
•The Samiti, represented by senior advocate Saumya Chakraborty, asked the Supreme Court to quash the resolutions and declare them void. The hearing mostly focused on the resolution passed by the Kerala Assembly on December 31, 2019, criticising CAA as a law violating the right to equality. The Assembly had called upon the Centre to abrogate the CAA.
•“It is the opinion of the majority in the Kerala Assembly... They have not told people to disobey the law, they have only told Parliament to abrogate the law. It is only an opinion and does not have the force of law,” Chief Justice Bobde addressed Mr. Chakraborty.
•But the petitioner said that the Kerala Assembly should not be having an opinion whether the law is “good, bad or indifferent”.
•“Since they (State Assemblies) cannot make laws on the subjects in the Union List, they cannot also have a casual opinion on them,” Mr. Chakraborty argued.
•He said the Resolution was made even as about 60 petitions were pending in the Supreme Court against the CAA.
•“We are with you if you say that Kerala Assembly has no jurisdiction to set aside the law made by Parliament. But do they have no right to express an opinion?” Chief Justice Bobde asked.
•The senior lawyer said the Kerala Assembly procedure is clear in mandating that the House should not pass a resolution in matters which do not concern the State.
•“How can you say this is not a concern of the state?” the CJI asked.
•The court adjourned the case for four weeks, asking the petitioner to do further research on the issue.
📰 Lok Sabha passes bill to amend the Mines and Mineral (Development and Regulation) Act
Reforms in the mining sector will generate 55 lakh jobs, says Minister
•The Lok Sabha on Friday passed a Bill to amend the Mines and Mineral (Development and Regulation) Act (MMDR Act) through a voice vote, with Mines Minister Pralhad Joshi stating that the amendments will create jobs and allow private players with enhanced technology into the mining sector.
•“The reform in the mining sector would generate 55 lakh direct and indirect jobs. To enhance mining activity, we will allow the private sector with enhanced technology in mineral exploration,”Mr. Joshi told the Lok Sabha while moving the Bill. He said India produces 95 minerals and has same potential like South Africa and Australia but the mining sector was under-explored and India still had to import minerals like gold and coal.
•The Minister said the mining sector right now contributes 1.75% to the country’s GDP but the proposed reforms will raise the contribution to 2.5% as it seeks to make a large number of mines available for auctions by resolving legacy issues.
•Mr. Joshi said the Bill removes the distinction between captive and non-captive mines and seeks to introduce an index-based mechanism by developing a National Mineral Index (NMI) for statutory payments. The National Mineral Exploration Trust (NMET), to see the functioning of the sector, will be made an autonomous body.
‘Exclude tribal areas’
•Taking part in the debate, Congress MP Vincent Pala asked why the Mines and Minerals Bill was being amended every year and said either the officials of the Ministry were incompetent or some lobby was at work. He asked the government asked to exclude tribal areas under the Sixth Schedule.
•“We are not against mining operations but we are against the way the hasty auctions which you are doing,” S.S. Ulaka, another Congress MP said. He suggested that a joint committee that included tribal members of Parliament, those from mining areas, besides oficials from the ministries of Tribal Affairs ministry, Environment and Forest ministry and Mines Ministry should be formed.
•Extending his support to the Bill, Biju Janata Dal MP, Pinaki Misra said the Mines Ministry and the Environment Ministry should work in synergy to promote the growth of the sector.
📰 New phase of U.S.-China ties comes with tests for India
Any reset in relations from turbulent Trump era is unlikely.
•A sharp exchange between top U.S. and Chinese officials in Alaska on Friday, played out fully in the eyes of the gathered media, marked the start of a new phase in U.S.-China relations — one that comes with fresh challenges for India.
•If the acrimonious public exchange appeared to be a surprising departure from the diplomatic norms usually followed in such scripted meetings, it was, on one level, entirely expected.
•After all, both sides had made clear in the lead-up to the Biden administration’s first in-person engagement with China that the meeting in Anchorage was more about drawing red lines than any real attempt at a reset. Even describing what the meeting actually was had emerged as a point of discord, labelled by Beijing as a “strategic dialogue” even as Washington disputed that description.
•Secretary of State Antony Blinken, accompanied by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan for the talks with Yang Jiechi, Politburo member and Director of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, and Wang Yi, the Foreign Minister, set the tone by expressing “deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyberattacks on the U.S., and economic coercion toward our allies”.
•These actions, he said, threatened “the rules-based order that maintains global stability”, as he framed the Biden administration’s view of ties with China as being “competitive where it should be, collaborative where it can be, adversarial where it must be”
•What followed was a 16-minute speech from Mr. Yang, going far beyond the expected two-minute opening statement, which he said he “felt compelled to make” because “of the tone of the U.S. side”. Mr. Yang slammed the “so-called rules-based international order” which he said was “advocated by a small number of countries” — the U.S.-India-Japan-Australia “Quad", incidentally, is among them. To Washington’s contention that it was engaging China from a position of strength — the Alaska meeting pointedly followed the Quad leaders’ summit last week and Mr. Blinken’s recent visits to Japan and South Korea — Mr. Yang retorted, “the U.S. does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength”. The remarks were widely circulated in the Chinese media, welcomed as reflecting a new dynamic in the relationship.
•The message from Beijing was that if Washington expected this meet to be about a one-way drawing of the red-lines, it was clearly mistaken. Meanwhile, the unequivocal message from Washington was that the Biden administration will certainly not be an Obama 2.0, a time when both sides emphasised cooperation.
Key takeaways
•The main takeaway from Alaska is that any reset in ties from the turbulent Trump era is unlikely. At the same time, the acrimonious beginning, which to some degree was a result of public posturing by both sides who were concerned about sending the right messages to their audiences at home, may give way to some cautious engagement.
•If China made a concession by travelling to Alaska, a point made by its officials, a return visit to Beijing by Mr. Blinken in coming months, should it take place, will underline that both sides are still seeking spaces to work together amid the rancour. Both, for instance, could still agree to cooperate on issues like climate change, the global economic recovery, and Afghanistan.
•The other takeaway is the emergence of a drawing of battle lines between Washington and its allies on one side, and on the other, Beijing and its main ally when it comes to the Indo-Pacific and Eurasia, Russia. China was quick to announce, before the Alaska talks, that Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will visit Beijing, days after President Biden called Russia’s Vladimir Putin “a killer”.
•This will particularly pose a test for India’s diplomacy, starting with affecting India’s defence supplies from Russia, with the U.S. making it clear that importing Russian equipment like the S-400 missile defence system will attract sanctions as well as the U.S. withholding high-tech exports.
•While India confronts its own problems with China amid a slow-moving disengagement process along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), it has still made clear it does not want to be part of any alliances. This balancing act is reflected in India’s varying multilateral engagements, ranging from the Quad to groupings like RIC (Russia-India-China), the BRICS, and the China and Russia-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
•The U.S.-China divide will also mean a tightrope walk for India at the UN Security Council, where it is serving a two-year term as non-permanent member, as the split between the U.S, the U.K and France on the one hand and Russia and China on the other grows ever wider, as seen in response to the Myanmar coup.
📰 Delhi undermined: On Centre’s bid to run the National Capital Territory
Bill to amend GNCTD Act is a rollback of the notion of representative government
•The Centre’s Bill seeking to amend the law relating to the running of the National Capital Territory of Delhi claims that it is aimed at giving effect to the interpretation given by the Supreme Court judgments on Delhi’s governance structure. The proposed changes are the very antithesis of what the Court has said. The Bill, if it becomes law, will wholly undermine the Court’s efforts to strengthen the elected government vis-à-vis the appointed Lieutenant Governor. The Constitution Bench verdict of July 4, 2018, said: “The Lieutenant Governor has not been entrusted with any independent decision-making power. He has to either act on the ‘aid and advice’ of the Council of Ministers, or he is bound to implement the decision taken by the President on a reference being made by him.” The ‘aid and advice’ clause pertains only to matters on which the elected Assembly has powers under the State and Concurrent Lists, but with the exception of public order, police and land, and, wherever there are differences between the L-G and the elected government, the former should refer the question to the President. The Court was at pains to clarify that the power to refer “any matter” to the President did not mean that “every matter” should be referred thus. The guiding principle was that the elected government should not be undermined by the unelected administrator. The Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha does violence to this interpretation.
•The Bill seeks to declare that in the context of legislation passed by the Delhi Assembly, all references to the ‘government’ would mean the “Lieutenant Governor”. Indeed, Delhi is a Union Territory; but it is somewhat incongruous for a territory with an elected House to be declared the sole domain of the L-G. The apex court had rightly concluded that the scheme set out in the Constitution and the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act, 1991, envisages a collaborative structure that can be worked only through constitutional trust. The proviso to Article 239AA, which empowers the L-G to refer a difference of opinion with the Council of Ministers to the President, does not mean that the administrator is given an opportunity to come up with a different opinion on every decision made by the Ministry. Yet, it is precisely what the Bill proposes to do. And it is quite incongruous that instead of Parliament identifying the matters on which the L-G’s opinion should be sought, the Bill proposes that the L-G himself would specify such matters. The clause that declares void any rule that empowers the Assembly or its Committees to discuss any matter of day-to-day administration or conduct enquiries amounts to a rollback of representative government. The ‘Union Territory’ concept is one of the many ways in which India regulates relations between the Centre and its units. It should not be used to subvert the basis of electoral democracy.
📰 Chasing peace: On allowing Taliban to share power in Afghanistan
The Taliban should not be allowed to have its way in talks on sharing power in Afghanistan
•The peace conference hosted by Russia in Moscow between the Afghan government and Taliban representatives is the latest example of growing international concern about the future of Afghanistan as the May 1 deadline for the proposed U.S. troops pullout nears. No breakthrough was expected from a single-day conference between the parties that have been fighting each other for nearly 20 years. The Russian plan was to bring together the Taliban and the government, whose Doha peace talks have stalled for months, to jump start the peace process. The U.S. has also called for a UN-led multilateral peace conference. The Afghanistan conflict is a multifaceted one, with its primary actors being the government, the Taliban and the U.S. Others such as Russia, China and India are worried about the conflict’s spillover effects. There is a consensus among all these countries that Afghanistan needs to be stabilised now. U.S. President Joe Biden, who is reviewing the administration’s Afghan strategy, said this week that it would be “tough” to withdraw all U.S. troops by the May 1 deadline as the Trump administration agreed in an accord with the Taliban. On the other side, the Taliban have threatened to launch a new offensive if the U.S. does not leave according to the schedule. It is a stalemate.
•Mr. Biden’s dilemma is that he cannot commit troops endlessly to a war that the U.S. is certainly not winning. But if he pulls back without a peace agreement, the civil war could intensify, and the Taliban, already in control of much of rural Afghanistan, could make rapid gains. And if he decides to keep the troops even for a short term, it could trigger a tough response from the Taliban. So, the U.S. administration is trying to put together a new peace process, with other regional actors, which would not just buy time for the Americans but also seek to find a lasting settlement. It seems Russia, China and India are on board. Pakistan, which hosts the Taliban leadership, will also participate in the peace process. The flip side of this diplomatic push is that all the main stakeholders agree that the Taliban would play a critical role in shaping Afghanistan’s future. The U.S. already wants the Afghan government to share power with the Taliban. Russia has asked the Afghan government and the Taliban to make “necessary compromises”. The jihadist group, whose reign of Afghanistan during 1996-2001 was notorious for extremism, violence and suppression of basic rights, is on the cusp of power again. The international actors pushing for peace with the Taliban should at least extract compromises from them. After the Moscow meet, Russia, China, the U.S. and Pakistan said that a peace agreement should “include protections for the rights of all Afghans”. They should make it their top priority in the coming talks.
📰 The message in Alaska, from Washington to Beijing
The Quad partnership could mount a counter-challenge to China, but India’s steps will be more nuanced
•A week after the first Leaders’ Summit of the Quadrilateral Framework, held on March 12, the message of the virtual meeting between leaders of Australia-India-Japan-the United States was delivered directly to Beijing, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Yang Jiechi, Chinese Communist Party Politburo member and Director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office, accompanied by U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and Chinese Foreign Minister and State Councillor Wang Yi, met in Anchorage, Alaska.
Quad in focus
•The message was broadly a three-pronged one: that under the new U.S. President, “America is back” in terms of its desire to play a leading role in other regions, that it views China as its primary challenger for that leadership, and that the Quad partnership is ready to mount a counter-challenge, albeit in “soft-power” terms at present, in order to do so. In the Quad’s joint statement — its first — and in the joint editorial by U.S. President Joe Biden and Prime Ministers Narendra Modi (India), Scott Morrison (Australia) and Yoshihide Suga (Japan), direct mentions of China may have been absent, but senior officials have made it clear that they were not overlooked in the conversation.
•Briefing the media about the Quad Summit, Mr. Sullivan said that Quad partners had raised their issues with China, including: “[China’s] coercion of Australia, their harassment around the Senkaku Islands, their aggression on the border with India”, which were then taken up during the talks with Mr. Wang and Mr. Yang.
•The fact that the talks in Alaska were prefaced by the Quad summit, as well as visits to Tokyo and Seoul (by Mr. Blinken and U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin; Mr. Austin will visit Delhi this weekend), and also a visit to Canberra by U.S. Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell, is no coincidence, and part of the concerted messaging from Washington to Beijing. For both Japan and Australia, that are military allies of the U.S., and completely aligned on Indo-Pacific policy, the outcomes of the summit, both in terms of the “3C’s”working groups (established on COVID-19 vaccines, Climate Change and Critical Technology), and in terms of this messaging to the “4th C” (China) are very welcome.
Vaccine diplomacy
•For India, however, the outcomes of the Quad Summit need more nuanced analysis. On the “3C’s Working groups”, it is clear that New Delhi is on board, but with some riders. The vaccine initiative, for example, is a major boost for India’s pharmaceutical prowess, which has already been proven during the current pandemic.
•India is not only the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines (by number of doses produced and sold globally), it has already exported 58 million doses to nearly 71 countries worldwide as commercial shipments, grants and those funded by the Gavi COVAX initiative. Manufacturing a billion doses for South East Asia (under the Quad), over and above its current international commitments, as well domestic goals to vaccinate 300 million people as originally planned by September (900 million adults in total, i.e. 1.8 billion doses) will require a major ramp up in capacity and funding, and will bear testimony to the power of Quad cooperation, if realised.
•However, the effort could have been made much easier had India’s Quad partners also announced dropping their opposition to India’s plea at the World Trade Organization, which it filed along with South Africa in October 2020, seeking waiver from certain provisions of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights for the prevention, containment and treatment of COVID-19. It is surprising that the summit did not seek to bridge differences over this issue (it has seen eight fractious rounds of talks in Geneva, with the next round expected in June 2021) when the leaders discussed how to increase India’s production capabilities.
Climate change, technologies
•On climate change, India has welcomed the return of the U.S. to the Paris accord, after former U.S. President Donald Trump decided to walk out of American climate change commitments. However, while Mr. Biden has promised to restart the U.S.’s funding of the global Green Climate Fund, which Mr. Trump ended, India still awaits a large part of the $1.4 billion commitment by the U.S. to finance solar technology in 2016, which Mr. Trump subsequently slowed down on. Mr. Biden might also consider joining the International Solar Alliance, founded by India and France, which the other Quad members are a part of, but the U.S., which promised to do so in 2016, has resisted.
•Meanwhile, on the Quad working group set up to cooperate on critical technologies, India will welcome any assistance in reducing its dependence on Chinese telecommunication equipment and in finding new sources of rare-earth minerals, but would oppose any move by the other Quad partners to weigh in on international rule-making on digital economy, or data localisation which had led New Delhi to walk out of the Japan-led “Osaka track declaration” at the G-20 in 2019.
Handling China
•It is on the “4th C”, however, where it is still unclear how far the Narendra Modi government can go on the Quad’s intended outcomes, especially on “collaboration, including in maritime security, to meet challenges to the rules-based maritime order in the East and South China Seas,” as the joint statement reads.
•While India shares the deep concerns and the tough messaging set out by the Quad on China, especially after the year-long stand-off at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and the killings at Galwan that India has faced, it has demurred from any non-bilateral statement on it. India is the only Quad member not a part of the military alliance that binds the others, the only Quad country with a land boundary with China, and the only Quad country which lives in a neighbourhood where China has made deep inroads. Indian officials are still engaged in LAC disengagement talks that have thus far yielded only a phase-1 disengagement at Pangong Lake; they have a long way to go to de-escalation or status quo ante.
•The violence at the LAC has also left three long-term impacts on Indian strategic planning: First, the government must now expend more resources, troops, infrastructure funds to the LAC than ever before, in order to leave no part of the once peaceful LAC unmanned and ensure no recurrence of the People's Liberation Army April 2020 incursions.
•Second, that India’s most potent territorial threat will not be from either China or Pakistan, but from both, or what the Indian Army Chief Manoj Mukund Naravane called a “two-front situation”. Third, that India’s continental threat perception will need to be prioritised against any maritime commitments the Quad may claim, especially further afield in the Pacific Ocean.
Direction for India
•The Modi government has said that it sees the Quad formation as it does its other multilateral commitments including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Central Asia, BRICS (or Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) in the emerging economies, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation/Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation in the neighbourhood, etc and seeks to broaden the space for its principle of Strategic Autonomy; not narrow its bilateral choices.
•In that sense, the Quad’s ideology of a “diamond of democracies” can only succeed if it does not insist on exclusivity in India’s strategic calculations. Those who speak of Robert Kaplan’s book, Monsoon, which proposed a greater role for the U.S. in the Indian Ocean as the inspiration for America’s current Quad strategy, would do well to also read Mr. Kaplan’s sequel, The Revenge of Geography, in which he makes the case that the world “continues to evolve according to the dictates of physical terrain, frustrating the proponents of human agency”. The truth is, despite last week’s Quad Summit, India’s choices for its Quad strategy will continue to be guided as much by its location on land as it is by its close friendships with fellow democracies, the U.S., Japan and Australia, across the seas.
