📰 Adolescent girls grappled with increased pressure to get married, more gender-based violence during pandemic: Study
‘COVID In Her Voice: A Girl-led and Centred Participatory Research Study also found girls spent longer hours on household chores and lacked tools to continue school education online.
•Twenty five girls from seven cities set out to interview their peers to record the impact of COVID-19 on their lives and found that adolescent girls were grappling with an increased pressure to get married, spent longer hours on household chores, lacked tools to continue school education online, and reported an increase in gender-based violence.
•The study titled ‘COVID In Her Voice: A Girl-led and Centred Participatory Research Study’ was released on April 13. It was conducted by girls aged 13-24 years from Ahmedabad, Alwar, Bareily, Delhi, Lucknow, Mumbai and Pune within their communities. It adopted a unique methodology where girls were trained as researchers to conduct interviews with a total of 153 girls from their respective communities. The study was supported by the U.K. government and conducted by EMpower, a global philanthropy focused on at-risk youth in emerging markets.
•Among the biggest challenges girls faced was the inability to attend online school. This was a result of nearly 80% respondents reporting an increase in household chores, which meant that 64% of girls and young women felt they did not have the space or get the time to study online. Lack of access to resources and technology was also a challenge — nearly 28% of those surveyed didn’t have the tools such as mobile phones or Internet access to learn online.
•With households from marginalised communities facing financial stress due to the economic impact of COVID-19, girls believed that the pressure to get married had increased, with nearly 42% reporting this.
•Almost 90% of girls reported experiencing mental distress and despair without any access to information about coping mechanisms. Their mental distress was exacerbated because of barriers in communicating with friends and teachers.
•26% respondents believe there was an increase in gender-based violence and felt that fears and threats of violence intensified restrictions on their freedom.
•On concluding the field research, seven girl leaders finalised a list of priority recommendations which include establishing girl-friendly spaces within the community such as skills training centres and violence-free spaces. They also seek well-maintained, safe and free toilets in close proximity to communities, as well as digital hubs in the community with charging stations and WiFi access, especially in the smaller cities.
Country meets 2 of 3 review criteria
•India is one of the 11 countries on the U.S. Treasury’s ‘Monitoring List’ with regard to their currency practices, according to the April 2021 edition of the semi-annual report, the first from the Biden administration. India was on the list in the December 2020 report as well.
•The report on Macroeconomic and Foreign Exchange Policies of Major Trading Partners of the United States, which is submitted to the U.S. Congress, reviews currency practices of the U.S.’s 20 biggest trading partners. Three criteria are used to review partners: a significant (at least $20 billion) bilateral trade surplus, a material current account surplus, and ‘persistent one-sided intervention’ in forex markets.
•The other 10 countries on the list with India that merit “close attention to their currency practices” according to the U.S. Treasury are China, Japan, Korea, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Mexico. All of these, except Ireland and Mexico, were on the December 2020 list.
•India met two of the three criteria — the trade surplus criterion and the “persistent, one-sided intervention” criterion, according to the U.S Treasury Department.
•“Treasury is working tirelessly to address efforts by foreign economies to artificially manipulate their currency values that put American workers at an unfair disadvantage,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Friday.
📰 Researchers propose method to treat rare blood clotting reaction to vaccine
They have outlined how this adverse reaction resembles a reaction to heparin, a blood thinner
•The U.S. on April 13 paused the use of Johnson and Johnson’s vaccine following adverse reactions in a few vaccinated persons while investigations are on to understand the mechanism of the rare reaction better. This followed the fact that six people in about 7 million vaccinated with J&J’s vaccine developed blood clots in the days following vaccination. A similar adverse reaction to AstraZeneca’s vaccine has been observed in rare cases. In this situation, a German and Austrian group, led by Andreas Greinacher of University Medicine Greifswald, in Germany, has announced a partial understanding of this mechanism and a possible method of treatment.
Age limits
•Since the incidence of clotting was observed mostly in younger women, several countries had set age limits for the use of the AZ vaccine. Canada, for example, recommended limiting the use of this vaccine to those above 55 years of age.
•Researchers have come closer to identifying the reason for the blood clotting events, seen in rare cases, following vaccination with the AstraZeneca vaccine. In two separate papers published in The New England Journal of Medicine, a group of researchers from Norway and another from Austria and Germany have outlined how this adverse reaction resembles a reaction to heparin — a blood thinner. Heparin can induce a condition where the platelet number dips and blood clots form. This is known as heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT). This is unusual because it is the platelets that help in clotting blood and, for example, preventing damage at injury sites.
The mechanism
•After vaccination, the vaccinated person develops specific antibodies which can bind to the platelets or thrombocytes and activate them to form clots which could eventually block the blood vessel (thrombosis). There is an accompanying decrease in the free platelets (thrombocytopenia).
•The researchers are not sure whether it is the vaccine that is causing the reaction or it is due to some factor in the person’s constitution.
•The researchers differentiate the blood clots arising from vaccination from HIT and have also outlined a way to test patients exhibiting the worrying symptoms and to manage the condition. They have developed a screening assay to determine whether the person has developed these particular antibodies.
The symptoms
•Most people experience flu-like symptoms and pain for a day or two after the vaccination. This is not a cause for concern. Symptoms of the adverse side-effect include dizziness, headache, visual disturbance, nausea, shortness of breath, acute pain in chest, abdomen, or extremities accompanied by thrombosis, and these occur approximately between five and sixteen days after vaccination. This needs medical attention. The researchers advise first ruling out heparin-induced thrombocytopenia and then testing for vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT) followed by specific treatment of the condition with immunoglobin.
•The J&J vaccine is of the same type as the AstraZeneca’s vaccine, in that both use an adenovirus to convey the instruction to human cells to make and recognise the spike protein of the SARS CoV-2 virus. This, in turn, teaches the immune system to guard against invasion by the virus. However, at the time of writing this report, researchers are not sure whether this commonality can be extended to infer that the blood clot reaction is due to the common factors in the vaccines themselves.
📰 Exiting Afghanistan: On U.S. troop pullout
The U.S. pullout without any settlement leaves the Taliban stronger
•By announcing that all U.S. troops would be pulled out of Afghanistan by September 11, President Joe Biden has effectively upheld the spirit of the Trump-Taliban deal, rather than defying it. In the agreement between the Trump administration and the insurgents in February 2020, U.S. troops were scheduled to pull back by May 1, in return for the Taliban’s assurance that they would not let terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State operate on Afghan soil. When Mr. Biden ordered a review of the U.S.’s Afghan strategy, there was speculation that he would delay the pullout at least until there was a political settlement. But he chose an orderly pullout — the remaining troops (officially 2,500) will start leaving Afghanistan on May 1, with a full withdrawal by September 11. Besides the U.S. troops, the thousands of coalition troops under the NATO’s command are also expected to pull back along with the Americans. Mr. Biden’s push to revive the peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban has hit a roadblock. A U.S.-initiated, UN-led regional peace conference is scheduled to take place in Ankara, Turkey, on April 24. But the Taliban have made it clear that they will not participate in it, and have threatened to step up attacks if the U.S. did not meet the May 1 withdrawal deadline. It is not clear whether the peace conference will go through without the Taliban’s participation and what it would achieve even if it goes through without the Taliban.
•This leaves the already shaky Ghani government in an even more precarious situation. After September, the government will be left with itself on the battleground against the Taliban. For now, Mr. Ghani has held together the powerful sections of the state and society against the Taliban at least in the provincial capitals. But once the Americans are gone, the balance of power in the stalemated conflict could shift decisively in favour of the Taliban. In the recent past, whenever the Taliban overran cities, U.S. air power was crucial in driving them back. The country is already witnessing a series of targeted killings of journalists, activists and other civil society members opposed to the Taliban. This does not mean that the government is on the verge of collapse. The U.S. has promised that it would continue remote assistance to the government. The role of regional players such as Russia, China and India, which have a shared interest in a stable Afghanistan, will also be crucial in deciding the country’s future. But one thing is certain: the U.S., despite all its military might, has lost the war and its withdrawal, without any settlement or even a peace road map, leaves the Taliban stronger and the government weaker. That is an ominous sign.
📰 Vaccine diplomacy that needs specific clarifications
The government needs to convince Indians that the vaccine exports have not been made at the cost of their health
•On March 18, V. Muraleedharan, Minister of state in the Ministry of External Affairs, while responding to a question in the Rajya Sabha on the “Distribution of Covid-19 Vaccine in Foreign Countries”, noted, “External supplies are done factoring in domestic production, requirements of national vaccination programme and requests for the ‘Made in India’ vaccines. These supplies will continue in the weeks and months ahead, in a phased manner, depending on production and needs of the national vaccination programme”.
As an obligation
•Mr. Muraleedharan also stated that India was sending these vaccines abroad in the “form of grant, commercial sales of manufacturers GAVI’s COVAX facility”. Eight days later, Mr. Muraleedharan made the same points while answering a question in the Lok Sabha but he also, significantly, added, “The supply to GAVI’s COVAX facility is an obligation since India is a member of this multilateral body and also a recipient of vaccines from this body.”
•As on April 13, India had supplied over 65 million vaccines to 90 countries. Of these more than 10 million were sent as grants, almost 36 million on a commercial basis and about 19 million under the COVAX programme. These estimates are based on the Ministry of External Affairs statistics. Taken together, these supplies come to around a month of India’s current COVID-19 vaccines production. An analysis of the timing of these supplies is revealing. Vaccines were sent as grants from the third week of January through March; some small quantities have also been sent this month. Vaccines were exported on a commercial basis mainly from end January through February, with a small number in March. The COVAX despatch was made overwhelmingly in March, though some small supplies have continued in April.
‘Why’ as a crucial query
•Mr. Muraleedharan’s responses to the Parliamentary questions focussed on ‘how’ vaccine supplies were sent. They also mentioned that these exports were contingent on requirements of the national vaccination programme, vaccines production and the compulsion arising out of the GAVI membership. They do not however go to the basic question: ‘why’ send vaccines at all. That is certainly a crucial query for the enormous domestic need for vaccines made each dose precious; hence, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s emphasis that no vaccine should go waste.
•An answer to ‘why send vaccines’ was given by Mr. Modi during his address to the Raisina Dialogue on April 13 when he said “…we in India have tried to walk the talk.” Speaking at the same forum, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said, “I think equitable access (to vaccines) is critically important in this. Because we all know that no one will be safe till everyone is safe.” Clearly, India wishes to signal that it is a responsible global power which does not self-obsessively think of itself alone. Significantly, India has not been shy of comparing its record with that of advanced western countries. Last month, Mr. Jaishankar asked, “Tell me, how many vaccines have internationalist countries given? Which one of these countries have said while I do (vaccinate) my people, I will do (inoculate) other people who need it as much as we do”?
A side to foreign policy
•This desire to be a good global citizen can be traced to the Objective Resolution moved by Jawaharlal Nehru in the Constituent Assembly on December 13, 1946. It noted, inter alia, “This ancient land attains its rightful and honoured place in the world and make its full and willing contribution to the promotion of world peace and the welfare of mankind.” Mr. Modi followed this vision when he also told the Raisina Dialogue, “And we must think of the entire humanity not merely of those who are on our side of the borders. Humanity as a whole must be at the centre of our thinking and action.” The Modi government also time and again invokes the ancient phrase ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”; Mr. Jaishankar did so at the Raisina Dialogue too. The premise of the ideal ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ is no different to that of the Objective Resolution.
•These approaches are the idealistic side of the foreign policy coin whose other face is fashioned by cold and ruthless realism and exclusive self-interest. Foreign policy makers often seek to emphasise a country’s tradition of altruism and the imperative of enlightened self-interest — in all peoples’ safety and prosperity lies our own — to justify the assistance they give to other lands. But they have to ultimately justify it to their own people on the basis of tangible short- or long-term strategic and economic interests. This is particularly so in times of shortages when the welfare of a country’s own citizenry is directly and obviously at stake. India’s vaccine supplies to foreign countries will be judged by its people on this criterion. How do they measure?
Factors that mattered
•The implications of Mr. Muraleedharan’s responses show that the government made estimates of the vaccines that could be sent abroad on the interplay of three factors: domestic production, the demands of the national vaccine programme and requests for vaccines manufactured in India. What is not known is how these factors were collectively addressed in the decision-making process. For instance: did the health authorities come to an independent judgment of domestic demand and base the national vaccine programme on this independent judgment? If this was the case, then the foreign supplies that have been made have been only of those vaccines that the health authorities thought could be spared to be sent outside. In such a scenario, the onus for answering questions on the making of the national vaccine programme would lie squarely with the health authorities. It would obviously not be so if domestic availability of vaccines was reduced by the number that had to be sent abroad on any consideration.
•Mr. Muraleedharan clarified that it was obligatory to send vaccines contracted under GAVI’s COVAX facility. Experts in international law can weigh in on this assertion because sovereign states can always invoke supreme national interest to over-ride obligations. Certainly, the vaccines sent as grants were voluntary and the commercial contracts of the company concerned could always be disregarded under existing laws. Thus, all in all, vaccines sent abroad were for general foreign policy considerations for which there is some justification. But that is insufficient. Specific clarifications are needed to convince the people that these exports have not been made at the cost of their health.
📰 The roots of a decentred international order
In the post-pandemic period, developing economies should rise to meet the U.S.-led liberal hegemonic world order
•The International Institute for Strategic Studies puts the overall estimate of China’s military budget at $230 billion (https://bit.ly/3sofrDw). The intentions for global supremacy are apparent, chiefly to outrun the Pentagon. The primary geopolitical rivals, namely Russia and China may possibly provide the strategic and tactical counterbalance to the hegemony of America. Moreover, the international order is under threat of the rising economic power of the BRICS nations, with China dominating in its economic and military capacity.
Rising powers and an agenda
•Though it is a far cry from surpassing the United States in its military prowess, particularly Russia which has no ambitions of a global outreach, it is apparent that the future of global politics requires a significant programmatic agenda in the hands of the rising powers that are aggressively building a parallel economic order envisaging new centres of hegemonic power. It forebodes the final decline of American ascendancy that began after the end of British imperialism in the aftermath of the Suez Crisis (1956) when a wrap on the knuckles by America led to the withdrawal of Britain and France. Pax Britannica gave way to Pax Americana.
•From the Renaissance period onwards, 14th-15th century Europe began its hegemonic ambitions through trade and commerce, taking almost 500 years to colonise and influence nations across the world. The tectonic shifts in the postcolonial era saw the interrogation of Eurocentrism and its biased accounts of the East, especially with the appearance of Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth and Edward Said’s Orientalism which began to propel freedom struggles against western-centric perspectives inherently inadequate and biased for the understanding of the emerging new world order. It was the Bandung Conference of 1955, a meeting of Asian and African states, most of which were newly independent, that set the schema for the rise of Asia, politically and economically. The confrontational stance was therefore the expected corollary in third world struggles to create a parallel order.
Dents to American supremacy
•Nevertheless, in all likelihood, America will continue to play a prime role in international affairs though its image representing universal brotherhood has sharply declined under the Trump regime, particularly his foreign policy of threatening to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on climate change. Furthermore, his bare-faced racist obsession and his handling of the marginalised immigrants has left the democratic world aghast. The rising tide of far-right ultra-nationalism and ethnic purity experienced in the Brexit phenomena, in Trumpism and in the promotion of the right-wing agenda in India, has set in motion the wearing down of liberal democracy. Other threats such as terrorism, ethnic conflicts and the warning of annihilation owing to climate change necessarily demand joint international action where American “exceptionalism” becomes an incongruity and an aberration. This indeed has chipped away at the American global supremacy.
•The world is, as a result, witness to a more decentred and pluralistic global order, a rather compelling vision of the empowerment of liberal forces standing up for an international order incentivised by long-term structural shifts in the global economy, indicating the evolving nature of power and status in international politics, especially in the context of the rising impact of Asian Regionalism on international trade and commerce.
Direction by China
•This is the evolutionary path the developing nations are already embarking on, though the current raging novel coronavirus pandemic has retarded economic development and sent many economies such as Brazil, India, Turkey and South Africa into a downward spiral. It is hoped that in the post-pandemic period, these economies would rise to meet the American-led liberal hegemonic world order. With China spearheading Asian regionalism, a serious challenge is possible but there is deep scepticism about China’s self-enhancing economic and military greed reflecting its personal economic rise. China must strengthen the opposition to the West through the promotion of regional multilateral institutions . Its self-centered promotion of building its own stature through the recent concentration on principle of the Belt and Road Initiative and the Silk Road project has, indeed provoked an understandable clash with India and Japan. More than having individual partners or allies, China must embrace and give a push to multilateral affiliations in order to not further exacerbate regional tensions.
•Power rivalry in a multipolar world would remain a possibility with military conflict not ruled out. It would be overly optimistic to imagine that the threat of war is behind us, though it can be safely said that it is unlikely. Regional military activity can be seen in Russia’s assertion of power in Georgia and Ukraine, Turkey in the east of the Mediterranean, India’s disputes with Pakistan and China’s infiltration into India as well as its rivalry within its periphery. History is a witness to nations beginning to flex their muscles once economic rise is assured and recognised across the world. Indeed, the international state of affairs is rather fuzzy and frenzied.
•However, the capabilities of the rising economies cannot be underestimated. China and India clearly have the age-old potential to lead as, historically, they have been pioneers of some of the oldest civilisations in the world. Whereas, China’s military capabilities must not make China lose its bearings, economically it must spearhead the challenge to the established western world that has ingrained its superiority in the consciousness of the developing world for centuries. China indeed is a valuable bedfellow for the launching of a union which could be a formidable challenge to the West at a stage when multifaceted transnational threats confront the world and need the collective universal attention. The fragmentation of global governance consequently can no longer be handled solely by America.
•Thus, a more nuanced understanding of power in the circumstance of the declining authority of the West has to be arrived at especially when China is still far from approaching U.S. power in just about any area, particularly in its economic or military strengths, its multinationals that lead just about in every category. Its defence advantages that are unparalleled.
•China, on the other hand, is indisputably a serious rival to the U.S. in the South China Sea, a world leader in renewable energy, and a formidable actor on the global stage of investment and trade, penetrating India, Israel, Ethiopia and Latin America. As Tongdong Bai writes in his book Against Political Equality, China has risen in its global power by “adopting the idea of absolute sovereignty and following the nation-state model, which is in conflict with the Western ideal that human rights override sovereignty…. But it cannot continue to rise by doing what it has been doing and it must eventually follow the liberal democratic models”. China must remember that its growing power has compelled Anthony Blinken, the current U.S. Secretary of State, to encourage NATO members to join the U.S. in viewing China as an economic and security threat.
•Thus, a kind of dualism persists in the world order with no clear hegemony that can be bestowed on one single nation. Global power gradually extends across a wider range of countries, restoring contestation necessary for the smooth working of a balanced world order, thereby allowing multiple narratives to co-exist on the international level. This has implications for the functioning of a civilisation that is not controlled by the indomitable will of one.
On sharing and treaties
•The emphasis, therefore, would be a move towards restructuring and advancement, as well as adopting an oppositional posture as a robust replacement of subservience to western hegemony. The challenges of the 21st century can be met head on through mutual sharing of knowledge and more ground-breaking inclusive treaties. It is feared that there could be a possibility of a multipolar world turning disordered and unstable, but it is up to the rising nations to attempt to overcome territorial aspirations and strike a forceful note of faith on cultural mediation, worldwide legitimacy, and the appeal of each society in terms of its democratic values. Interestingly, the sun is now setting on the empire and the rising nations are gradually waking up to a new experience of freedom and self-confidence.
